Hello Everyone - Just thought I'd put my two cents in on pentatonic
scales. If
your interested in them an excellent book on the subject is "Pentatonic
Scales for
Jazz Improvisation" by Ray Ricker. The shakuhachi is tuned to a D minor
pentatonic scale with RO as it's tonic (D,F,G,A,C). The reason being
that D is
the relative minor of F.
It's tuned to an F major pentatonic if you use Tsu as your tonic
(F,G,A,C,D)(notice
that the notes are the same just the tonal center is different). The
numerical
derivation for a minor pentatonic is 1, flat 3, 4, 5, flat 7. The
numerical
derivation for a major pentatonic is 1,2,3,5,6. What Bruno did was
apply the
major pentatonic numerical derivation to the minor which doesn't
work(although it
is a pentatonic scale but of a different nature). If you take any other
notes of
the scale and make them your tonic they also create pentatonic scales
with they're
own unique character and names (the names off hand I don't remember, but
they're
fun to experiment with anyway). To elaborate a little more the D major
scale is:
D E Fsharp G A B Csharp D(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8). Now if you apply the above
formula for a minor
pentatonic scale you get D F G A C . For a D major pentatonic you get D
E Fsharp A B.
Don't know if this made it any more or less confusing but GOOD LUCK to
everyone.
Bob
Bruno Desch=EAnes wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> > >The shakuhachi plays the pentatonic scale--right? But that's
> > the Minor
> > >Pentatonic scale--there's another one. Actually, many other scales.
> >
> Philip Gelg wrote:
>
> > the shakuhachi can play any scale that the player is able to
> > technically develop. It is certainly not simply a pentatonic
> > instrument though many people treat it as such.
>
> I feel there is a slight misunderstanding about how the instrument is
> tuned and what it can play. The pentatonic scale of the shakuhachi
> tuning is not the minor pentatonic scale. If it would be so, we would
> get: D, E, F, A, B. What we get is the F major pentatonic scale but
> starting on the D below it: F, G, A, C, D. But the overall character of
> most honkyoku pieces are based on a minor scale (pentatonic or not). In
> fact, most of these pieces dot not have a "scale" as we define it in
> Western music. We must consider a historical fact: the notion of scale
> as is discussed here is a Western notion. Some of us are somewhat
> putting on shakuhachi music something it did not have basically.
> Japanese music works more in terms of motives and modes than scales.
> Scale, tonality and harmony are closely linked. Without tonality and
> harmony, there is no real need to talk of scales.
>
> Bruno Deschenes
>
> ____________________________________________________
>
kuhachi">
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