Hi Everyone,
Indeed interesting article by Nelson. I would like to add few things to
Nelson's article about the pentatonic scale and the shakuhachi.
The natural pentatonic scale on D is not the scale of the shakuhachi,
but A, E, F# A, B (or in C: C, D, E, G, A). As such the shakuhachi does
not play the minor pentatonic scale (which would be A, E, F, A, Bb), it
plays the major pentatonic scale of F, but starting on D.
Also, we talk of scale while the pentatonic scale is not a scale per se
but a mode within the scale. The notion of scale is a Western notion.
All music, except Western music, functions in terms of mode: Indian,
Balinese, Chinese music and even Okinawa music. There is a marvellous in
this respect by French ethnomusicologist Alain Danielou: "Music and the
Power of Sound" Inner Traditions, 1995. Danielou shows that the Western
tempered scale is the most unnatural of all. We have in Western music
the progression of fifths, i.e. the fifth of C is G, then D, then A,
etc., which brings us back to C. If we calculate it using the simple
natural ratio of 2:1 for the fifth, when we get back to C, it is a lower
C, because the natural fifth is smaller than the tempered scale.
Unfortunately, and I would say strangely, in the Western world we have
come to consider "natural" the tempered scale, while, as Danielou shows,
it is the least natural of all for the ear. Even, the Chinese calculated
the tempered scale 200 years before the European and discarded it
because they found it uninteresting musically speaking.
Regarding the pentatonic mode (I prefer this term), classical Japanese
music overall uses mainly the minor pentatonic mode, except in a small
number of folk songs in which the major mode is used (although the
notion of major and minor mode is a basically Western notion). The basic
joshi (or tuning) for the koto is: D, G, A, Bb, D, Eb. In China, on the
contrary, most of the Han music uses the major pentatonic mode: C, D, E,
G, A.
The Okinawa mode is particular: its source is Chinese but has evolved
independently of it: C, D, E, G, B. In fact, Okinawa art has much
influences from China than Japan. Okinawa silk dying is almost exactly
the same as silk dying from the Tang Dynasty, i.e. as it was made more
than 1200 years ago.
But Japanese music, as much shakuhachi as shamisen music and others, are
not played in terms of mode per se, although we Westerners can extract
one. The old greek modes and scales, for example, are in fact smaller
modes based on the fourth: C, D, E, F. By putting 2 together, they got
the major scale as we know it today: C, D, E, F & G, A, B, C. A lot of
Shamisen music, for example, somewhat works in a similar way, i.e. by
notes sequences much smaller than the octave. We find this way of
working in many cultures all around Asia (among the Ainu of Northern
Japan, for example).
I hope you find these few comments interesting.
Bruno Deschenes
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