Minor pentatonic tunes

[ThorntonRose]

I would like some suggestions for minor pentatonic tunes, preferably slow airs.

[pancelticpiper]

You might have to be more specific.

There are several pentatonic modes on the whistle.

"Minor" implies to me a mode with a minor 3rd, but maybe you don't mean it that way.

There's a mode with a minor 3rd which is also pentatonic, which on the whistle can go:

E G A B d e

(where E is the tonic, G is the minor 3rd)

This mode is very common in Native American flute music, but I can't think of an Irish tune in that mode off the top of my head.

There's an Appalachian air, quite beautiful, called Wayfaring Stranger which uses that mode.

Many of the Irish pentatonic tunes are neither major nor minor as they lack the 3rd degree altogether. On the whistle they can go:

D E G A C d

or:

A B d e g a

or:

E F# A B d e

(the same mode each time, just with a different tonic. This mode has no 3rd or 6th degree)

[ThorntonRose]

A mode with a minor 3rd (1, 3, 4, 5, 7) is what I was thinking about. I will take a look at Wayfaring Stranger.

Since you mention NAF, can you suggest any Celtic tunes that might translate well?

[pancelticpiper]

Well I can't think offhand of any Irish tunes that are in that NAF mode.

Though there are a lot of Celtic pentatonic tunes that have a Major 3rd in them- go figure.

It's a quite common mode, which on the whistle usually is

G A B d e g

in other words, there's no 4th or 7th.

Amazing Grace is in that mode, as are a lot of jigs and reels etc.

[MTGuru]

So ThorntonRose, is your target instrument here really a NAF? Are you looking for Irish / Scottish tunes that are playable on a minor pentatonic NAF? Or Native American style tunes that are playable on a whistle? Or both?

As pancelt says, the "E G A B d e" minor pentatonic corresponds to the "standard" NAF layout. So to play along, you'd choose a whistle pitched one whole step lower than the pitch of the corresponding NAF: F whistle for G NAF, G whistle for A NAF, etc.

There aren't that many purely pentatonic tunes in Irish repertoire. They tend to be Scottish imports, and are usually either major or major/minor ambiguous. Something like Spootiskerry comes to mind.

There are, however, many tunes that are essentially gapped hexatonic (sometimes with passing tones). E.g., Gapped minor: E F# G A B d e (missing 6th, ambiguous between Aeolian/Dorian); Gapped major: G A B c d e g (missing 7th, ambiguous between Ionian/Mixolydian).

By fudging the extra scale tones (the bolded F# or c-nat in the examples above) with half-holes or melodic workarounds, these tunes could be played on NAF. And remember that a minor pentatonic NAF can also play major pentatonic by starting on xxx xxo, the second fingering degree of the scale.

[greenspiderweb]

I believe that someone once mentioned on a NAF site that "Irish Washerwoman" fit well on the Native American flute-so that probably fits your definition, and can be played slowly, although it's meant as a jig. I just tried it on my low Bb flute, and it sounded pretty good! Here's a midi:

http://www.ireland-information.com/iris ... oman.shtml

[MTGuru]

Aha, TR ... So you do have a NAF.

[talasiga]

You might have to be more specific.

There are several pentatonic modes on the whistle.

"Minor" implies to me a mode with a minor 3rd, but maybe you don't mean it that way.

..........

In western music theory the minor pentatonic mode is the minor complement to the pentatonic major scale.

Just as when you take any major scale you will get the natural minor from the 6th interval of that scale
(ie Cmajor/Aminor, Dmajor/Bminor, Gmajor/Eminor etc)
so you will get a consequent complementarity with the major pentatonic scale, namely, Cmaj.pent./Amin.pent.; Dmaj.pent/Bmin.pent; Gmaj.pent./Emin.pent.
(one way to look at the major pentatonic scale is that it is the major scale with the 2nd and 7th notes omitted. Likewise, the minor pentatonic is the natural minor scale with the 2nd and 6th notes omitted).

(My usage of the term "major scale" and "minor pentatonic" in this post is strictly within the xenophonic strictures of western music theory which is premised on diatonic scales and gapped (pentatonic and hexatonic amendments of those scales) and my usage here is not meant to imply that I do not recognise a variety of major scale and minor scale types around the planet).

In light of this I can immediately understand ThorntonRose's question if I presume he is coming from a western music theory point and in realtion to the subject matter of celtic music. On the balance of probabilities my presumption is likely to be correct.

Therefore I will answer the said ThorntonRose in my next post and with some pleasure in sharing some of my favourite pieces ......

[talasiga]

@ThorntonRose

One of my favourites is Bonny Light Horseman which can be played very slowly. I first deliberately heard it in the early 80's sung by Dolores Keane in an album by the same name.

Most simple versions of Star of County Down are also in this scale.

Minor pentatonic is common in afro, indic, japanese and many other musics. The intervals are (in semitone values from the tonic) 3:2:2:3:2
which means with the E tonic you will get what pancelticpiper identified in his post, namely.
E G A B d e. Other easy possibilities of it on a standard Irish whistle are with A and B.

[jw wren]

Talasiga's post:

one way to look at the major pentatonic scale is that it is the major scale with the 2nd and 7th notes omitted.

contains a typo. The 4th and 7th notes are omitted - not the 2nd and 7th.

(Mr T is up north visiting the beautiful granddaughter in her new rainforest home and doesn't have internet access so he asked me to correct this for him.)

[Mitch]

"Dirty Old Town" .. (damnit - I KNOW it's a song, not a tune .. but still nice to play on any whistle-ish instrument!)

It's ambiguous whether this tune is in the minor pentatonic or on some kind of strange lydian mode ..

Talasiga will confirm it is the Durga raag .. but the ambiguity probably breaks the rules

The other (nearly) one is "Auld Lang syne". (Mr T alerted me to this one).

[s1m0n]

Just as when you take any major scale you will get the natural minor from the 6th interval of that scale
(ie Cmajor/Aminor, Dmajor/Bminor, Gmajor/Eminor etc)
so you will get a consequent complementarity with the major pentatonic scale, namely, Cmaj.pent./Amin.pent.; Dmaj.pent/Bmin.pent; Gmaj.pent./Emin.pent.
(one way to look at the major pentatonic scale is that it is the major scale with the 2nd and 7th notes omitted. Likewise, the minor pentatonic is the natural minor scale with the 2nd and 6th notes omitted).

Thank. I often find some of your theoretical explanations impenetrable, but this one is entirely pellucid.

[s1m0n]

"Dirty Old Town" .. (damnit - I KNOW it's a song, not a tune .. but still nice to play on any whistle-ish instrument!)

It's ambiguous whether this tune is in the minor pentatonic or on some kind of strange lydian mode ..

Ewan McColl wasn't a theoretical songwriter. Peggy Seeger described his songwriting technique as writing new words to an existing tune that had the 'right' mood for his new song, and then singing it over and over and over, changing one thing at a time until he had a new tune that sounded right but didn't sound like the one he started with.

[benhall.1]

"Dirty Old Town" .. (damnit - I KNOW it's a song, not a tune .. but still nice to play on any whistle-ish instrument!)

It's ambiguous whether this tune is in the minor pentatonic or on some kind of strange lydian mode ..

Talasiga will confirm it is the Durga raag .. but the ambiguity probably breaks the rules

The other (nearly) one is "Auld Lang syne". (Mr T alerted me to this one).

Well, Dirty Old Town is definitely not in any sort of Lydian. At a massive stretch, you could just about argue that it is in Aeolian. But it seems to me to be fairly clear that it's not in any sort of minor mode at all. If you wrote it out like so:

D3G | B8- | B2A>G B2G2 | D8 etc ... at that pitch, it's clearly in G. The ending is simply a good old-fashioned interrupted cadence onto the sixth degree of the major scale.

In other words, it's in a major pentatonic mode. In this case, G major. Auld Lang Syne is in the same pentatonic mode.

[jw wren]

Thank. I often find some of your theoretical explanations impenetrable, but this one is entirely pellucid.

Pellucid - fabulous word. Lucid with pells on.