Pentatonic Scale

[aqu01rius]

How do you compose piano music in pentatonic scale?
are there any guides?

[ted]

I was waiting for somebody else to state the obvious but it seems to have fallen to me.

In the general sense there are no rules for composing or playing in pentatonic scales or any other keyboard figure. You just do whatever you want to do and that's all that can be said about it. If by your question you meant, "Are there any classical or popular idioms based on the pentatonic scale in the same way as Western classical is based on keys and diatonic scales ?" , then yes, I think much Chinese music is so based. However, just as classical Western tonality, with all its ramifications, is a complex and deep study, so the various branches of Eastern classical constitute an equally profound and difficult subject.

It depends in what sense you asked the question.

[Tash]

debussy was highly influenced by it as was peter sculthorpe i think, or maybe he was just obsessed with asian music... can't remember...that's what's at the top of my head...

[pianistimo]

tcherpnin, too. 

[debussy symbolism]

Greetings.

The pentatonic scale has its own voice, sound, color and mood to it. The pentatonic scale sound was very important to Debussy as well as Ravel, giving their music an oriental feel. I personally love the pentatonic scale. I love to improvise on it, resorting to other major and minor scales for their own feel, especially the D flat major and G flat major. The pentatonic not only represents the oriental, but has its own mood of antiquity and just sheer sound. It is a unique scale that when combined with others such as whole-tone or other scales that may as well not follow the major-minor sounds produce its feeling of mood and color. The are no rules when composing on the scale. You have only to listen. I think Debussy's "Pagodes" is an outstanding masteripiece of music, imitative of the Javanese Gamelan and their use of various gongs and tunings, in this case the pentatonic.