This is in response to something Jim said in the Native American music thread. Rather than derail that thread I’m posting it as a new topic.
On 2002-04-03 15:31, jim stone wrote:
I’ve known native Americans who played
flutes–the music I heard is pentatonic,
flowing, improvisational, and from the
heart. So I reckon it’s within reach
if one figures out the pentatonic scale,
as suggested above.
It is often said that if you stick to the pentatonic scale, any sequence of notes sounds like a coherent tune.
Pentatonic scales can be played on the whistle starting on several notes, but in case anyone is wondering how to do it, here’s an easy way to experiment with a pentatonic scale:
Imagine the first and second fingers of your bottom hand are taped together. This means you never play an F# and always raise and lower these fingers together.
Keep the first finger of your top hand on its hole.
WIth these restrictions, you can play all the notes available to you (no half-holing), i.e. D, E, G, A, B in both octaves.
Incidentally you’ll find you can play an surprising number of common Irish tunes with this fingering - Out on the Ocean and Christmas Eve for starters.
Another easy pentatonic scale can be obtained by playing only the black notes on the piano. How many people realized that the humble “Chopsticks” could claim the lofty status of being a pentatonic tune?
StevieJ’s visualization of the index and middle finger of the lower hand taped together is great! Also, notice that when you start the series of pentatonic notes at xxxxxo the scale sounds minor, but if you start at xxxooo the scale sounds major. Depending on which position you start on, you get one of the five pentatonic patterns. If you prefer to play intuitively rather than get bogged down with the math of music, just get familiar with the unique sounds of each of the five pentatonic patterns to take you a long way in playing spontaneously and expressively with pentatonics. By the way, pentatonic means five-tone scale and some people call it that instead.
[ This Message was edited by: ysgwd on 2002-04-04 20:23 ]
Think I’ll try to make a “low D” pentatonic body for my Dixon this weekend. Looking at my shakuhachi which is also pentatonic, I notice that the holes are(seem to be) the same size and spaced an equal distance apart.
When I’m able to get the schakuhachi to sound, what ever I play seems to fit together well, just like the black keys on the piano. Maybe I should start at C#…
Were can I find the pentatonic scale? Is there a website that gives the scale? I am used to playing hours and hours of guitar scales so I know what kind of things can come out of a scale. I think it would be wonderful to play scales on the whistle. Thanks for the insight!
One of the greatest things we used to do as teenagers was play four-handed improv on a piano, without actually being able to play the piano. It works because, as Steve mentioned, the black keys form a pentatonic scale, in which you can play no “wrong” notes.
So, the only rules is: Never touch a white key. The person on the left (lower) can do more rhythmic stuff, the person on the right, more melody-like meanderings. It is great. I recommend red wine or other substances that I cannot in good conscience recommend with it.
On 2002-04-04 21:55, Walt wrote:
Looking at my shakuhachi which is also pentatonic, I notice that the holes are(seem to be) the same size and spaced an equal distance apart.
With wooden instruments you can play with (adjust) the wall thicknesses, so equally sized and equidistant holes are possible. And encouraged for aesthetics.
Semi off topic, I found the name of that guy who writes little books about building Native American Style Flutes. His name is Lew Price. Please Note that is you are not of Native American heritage you must refer to your flutes as Native American Style for legal reasons.
