A pentatonic scale is a musical scale or mode with five notes per octave in contrast to a heptatonic (seven note) scale such as the major scale and minor scale. Pentatonic scales are very common and are found all over the world. They are divided into those with semitones (hemitonic) and those without (anhemitonic).
The ubiquity of anhemitonic pentatonic scales can be attributed to the lack of the most dissonant intervals between any pitches; there are neither any semitones (and therefore also no complementary major sevenths) nor any tritones. This means any pitches of such a scale may be played in any order or combination without much dissonance.
Read more about Pentatonic Scale: Pervasiveness, Tuning, Further Pentatonic Musical Traditions, Use in Education, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the word scale:
“We honor motherhood with glowing sentimentality, but we don’t rate it high on the scale of creative occupations.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)