pentatonic

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Welcome pentatonic thanks for joining us - all five of you!

Steve

[Pentatonic]

Thanks Steve! Now I will have a jolly good read.

Pentatonic.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Thanks Steve! Now I will have a jolly good read.

Pentatonic.

Perhaps I am not aware of how you use the term pentatonic. In music those are scales we used in R&R since i was a young teenager. Are you interested in music also?

[Pentatonic]

Steve, what is that R&R you were interested in as a teenager?
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Pentatonic scales are found in Chinese, Celtic, Eskimo and African music, and may date back to Neolithic times. So says a book I have (The black keys on a piano.) 5 notes. From Greek pente.
I have this most wonderful "Book of Music", compiled by a team of experts from various musical backgrounds, illustrated too. It has EVERYTHING. 
I got it a lifetime ago, so it is probably not available anymore, and these days you can google everything.
Anyway, yes I am interested in music, have a lot of instruments and have played them all from time to time, but these days it is the harp, recorder and mouth organs. Hehe, and sometimes the Irish Penny whistle. With a small group, and we play all sorts, but I think we prefer Celtic.
Two of us have compiled some of our own compositions in a book we got printed. I was rapt when I found out about the latest computer programs which let you write music easily, hear it played back and you can print it.
At the beginning of this millennium I first got a computer, then a cumbersome music program, which I never got to understand. But when I got this one, I was in Heaven. 

Back to Pentatonic. As a child, when I learnt the tune to "Auld Lang syne" I was like transported to a far away "place" and sang it over and over. Maybe that place is the Stone Age? Of course I must have lived during the Stone Age. Where? Was I a Druid? Could be anything. I know a person, who always gets carried away when Pentatonic music is played and starts singing. A person with learning difficulties.
Auld Lang syne is easily played on the black piano keys. D# - F# F# F# - A# and so on.
What IS it about those 5 notes, both in major and minor keys, which is so haunting? Pythagoras is supposed to be the one who put in the extra notes to make our Western scales. 
The number 5 is also mysterious in geometry. 
I am a bit of a fan of number 5, you could say.
If you play the black notes on a piano and start on F# and go on to G# A# C# D# and down again, then you played the F# Pentatonic major scale.
Similarly, if starting on D# instead of, playing up and down, well, then you have played the relative minor scale of D#. They are relatives in that they have the same notes, but start on a different one. Minor scales always have a somewhat more "sad" feel to them.
The white-note scale of Pentatonic major C goes C D E G A and down again.
( no F orB),
and it's relative minor scale goes A C D E G and down.
Of course there are all the other Pentatonic scales as well, but there you have to mix white and black keys (on the piano).
Pianos are so handy, all is laid out to see straight away. However, for old ears it can be a bit harsh and result in ringing, or tinnitus.
A harp is ideal for older ears, and mine is a cross-strung, so it is similar to a piano.
The "white" strings go one way, the black ones (literally all of them black) go the other, crossing each other, without touching. Wouldn't be a good harp if they touched!
The piano developed from the harp. And the harp probably from the bow and arrow. Some smart hunter went twang, twang while tightening his bow and thought, hmm, that was interesting, maybe I could have more than one string to my bow? - and the harp, or lyre, was born. I think I might have been that hunter!!! .
There, I have answered you!
Pentatonic.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

It just fascinates me how fluidly you talk about music. I started playing some of those major and minor pentatonic scales on the mandolin after you wrote your last post above mine. It is always nice to drill yourself to be more conscious of what you are playing. You see when i play the mandolin i am not always conscious of what i am doing. Sometimes I am more aware of the make up of music after the fact. I believe that we can actually find where we came from in the past by are preferences in art and music.

You see I pick up a mandolin and start composing and the music comes out as some sort of Celtic or Irish music from the British Isles. However, I really haven't played or listened to much of it this life. It is just easier to start with pentatonic scales when learning a new instrument. Soon you add a flat 4rth to a minor pentatonic scale and you have a blues scale and that flat fourth would be a flat 3rd in a Major Pentatonic scale.

[Pentatonic]

A pity we are half a globe apart. I would love to be able to play blues, but have not grown up with it. I prefer playing by ear, but understand notes too, of course. 
Must examine what you are telling me here! 
I have a mandolin too, but have not played it for many years. Dug it out recently and the metal holding the strings had broken. How? It slept in a very good case, so how? Never mind, I got new strings to put on it, and a new piece of metal, whatever it is called, to screw on.
Have not done it yet, as summer is coming fast here (guess where I live!), and the outdoors has to be tended to first of all, as everything is growing very fast.
I have a bluegrass mandolin book with both notes and TAB from way back, and learned just a few pieces. That was before I moved to the country, with lots more outdoor jobs.
The book has a RECORD with it, a floppy one, that I can't play anymore, but I think I put it on a tape as well.
Tape recorders were good, you could easily play tunes in, and edit them too.
You make me feel like getting the mandolin out now, but I can't! Have things I must do.
SOON!
Could you please tell me exactly the note names with that 4th added to make it a blues scale. Any key will do - if it is not too much trouble? Sometimes I hear these blues in my head, but when I get to an instrument they are gone. That is where music books come in handy, but it is a bit bothersome to read notes......

Pentatonic.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

Steve, what is that R&R you were interested in as a teenager?
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When I was just very young I remember hearing rock bands on T.V. I was impressed by the charisma of some of the musicians and the unworldly astral influences some of them could bring into this physical dimension. I remember a monk tell me at the Vivekananda Monastery (Where i lived for years.) that these souls go to certain regions of the astral realms to acquire and learn such gifts. I also soon learned how to solicit the help of spiritual guides to channel music into this physical realm.

Later I expanded this somewhat of a hero worship to great avatars as well- as I realized that they were bringing in much higher strata into this physical realm and that there are many kinds of magnetism. Soon I was performing myself yet somehow my life was always destined to many years in solitary meditation and working with others to bring many together with the same life goal of finding our ultimate liberation.


I will be seeing Amma next week. She is a tremendous spiritual magnet and also uses music to summon Gods' presence.

[Jitendra Hydonus]

A pity we are half a globe apart. I would love to be able to play blues, but have not grown up with it. I prefer playing by ear, but understand notes too, of course. 
Must examine what you are telling me here! 
I have a mandolin too, but have not played it for many years. Dug it out recently and the metal holding the strings had broken. How? It slept in a very good case, so how? Never mind, I got new strings to put on it, and a new piece of metal, whatever it is called, to screw on.
Have not done it yet, as summer is coming fast here (guess where I live!), and the outdoors has to be tended to first of all, as everything is growing very fast.
I have a bluegrass mandolin book with both notes and TAB from way back, and learned just a few pieces. That was before I moved to the country, with lots more outdoor jobs.
The book has a RECORD with it, a floppy one, that I can't play anymore, but I think I put it on a tape as well.
Tape recorders were good, you could easily play tunes in, and edit them too.
You make me feel like getting the mandolin out now, but I can't! Have things I must do.
SOON!
Could you please tell me exactly the note names with that 4th added to make it a blues scale. Any key will do - if it is not too much trouble? Sometimes I hear these blues in my head, but when I get to an instrument they are gone. That is where music books come in handy, but it is a bit bothersome to read notes......

Pentatonic.

Nomaste if you live in Australia or New Zealand  i have always had an interest in that area of the world. I try to understand it rationally. Perhaps some of it has to do with the ocean surrounding most of the Populated areas. You can use your rational mind to understand attractions but it often requires past life recollection to understand where these interests originated.

O.K. Let's start with a minor pentatonic. Why? Because it is probably the easiest given the fact that you will use all the white keys for the scale and the identifiable black keys for the blues notes. You will not have to squeeze your fingers thru to hit white notes which you would have to do if we used all black keys. As I have said a basic blues scale is distinguished by the presence of a flat 5 which in a minor scale or a flat 3 in a major scale. The flat 5 in the scale a minor is e flat. You will play all the notes you did for the minor pentatonic scale starting with a then c, d, e, g and back to a but this time you will add e flat. So when you get to d you play e flat and e in succession. There is one more note added here that is all. This is a start. Next you must work with it and understand how to use blues notes.

All for now,

Steve

[Pentatonic]

Thanks! Yes, I do have it somewhere else too, what a blues scale should be.
I just quickly played it on my harp, which is always staying out, ready to use.
No trouble with the fingers!
Now, here I got excited. You know a "normal" diatonic scale consists of 8 notes, an octave, starting and ending with the same note.
When I play the Pentatonic scales, I like NOT to stop suddenly after the 5 notes have been played, but go down again, as I showed yesterday. It gives you 9 notes and feels "complete".
With the blues scale you get 7 notes and can stop comfortably at the top note which is also the starting note, the key note.
How strange that lately I seem to get on to that "rhythm" outside music, like for instance hammering in a star post in the garden. 
You will have to excuse me, I am a little bit of a nut case sometimes!
Hammering in a star post I do 7 hammerings, then have a little rest. If I am stubborn and feel strong enough, I can hammer 13, but never an equal number.
I read that the Indians prefer 13 over 12. Might sound completely silly for some, but for a musician numbers are very important. In rhyming poetry numbers are also everything. Called stanza. I am not into poetry.
Anyway, next time I hammer a star post in, I will be aware of that it is really a blues scale I am hammering! Applying it to notes might be a different matter. My ears are not accustomed to blues. You can't do everything. I will have another try one day.
I might have been a troubadour/minnesinger/minstrel. Wandering around, singing and playing. Appeals to me. The troubadours were strongly involved with the Cathars.
In the meantime we have all these different birds outside, with each their melodies and rhythms. 
All is vibrations!
Cheers, Pentatonic.

[Pentatonic]

R&R.  -  stupid me. must be rock and roll!?  roll eyes, but not rocking!

pentatonic.

[guest46]

R&R.  -  stupid me. must be rock and roll!?  roll eyes, but not rocking!

pentatonic.

R&R meant rare rears but transmuted into roaring rumps and then escalated into rock in roll. Just thought I would expose the history of the anacronym.

                                                                                      Alfred Hitch

                                       

[Pentatonic]

Yes, of course!

Pentatonic.

[Liberace]

R&R.  -  stupid me. must be rock and roll!?  roll eyes, but not rocking!

pentatonic.

Oh my sweet heart you can not roll eyes at music itself.

[Pentatonic]

Sweetheart? How do you know which sex I am?

Pentatonic.

[Liberace]

Sweetheart? How do you know which sex I am?

Pentatonic.

I had to dare a bit - who am I kiddin? I had to dare a lot

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