Oct 19, 2009 I love this video – it sums up so many things that
are true and important about music to me. But how does it work ?
How do we know exactly what notes Bobby wants us to sing, even
though the only clue we have is which way he’s jumping – and how
far ? Part of the answer is that he is singing, and prompting us
to sing, in a pentatonic scale. In western music, we are very
used to scales with 8 notes, chosen from 12 “equal temperament”
semitones – like the white notes on a piano keyboard in C major,
for example: C, D, E, F, G, A, B… Whereas by contrast, the
pentatonic scale has only 5 notes. Still in C, these are: C, D,
E, G, A… Another pentatonic scale is formed by the black notes
on a piano keyboard. So what’s special about these 5 notes ?
Lots of things ! They are: The simplest, most fundamental
musical “interval” is the unison – ie. singing or playing
exactly the same note, or more usefully, an octave above or
below it. Following swiftly on the unison’s heels though is the
perfect 5th – C to G, fo