deterring which pentatonic scale to use

[DBK]

So up until recently I've been forming my melodies with any variation of the 7 notes in my diatonic scale. But I'm watching lots of videos where they are using a pentatonic scale to form the melodies. I dont need a description of a pentatonic scale or anything, I just want to know how you determine where to start your pentatonic scale based on which key youre in?

This question might not make sense yet, I just starting wondering about it so I might be asking the question wrong. But anyway. When making a melody how do you determine which pentatonic scale you are going to use based on

a.)the chord progression you have made
OR
b.)just starting a blank project and only knowing your key signature

[BertKoor]

Musical scales are a bit like languages & dialects. In general you use them unconciously. There's something you want to say, and you just say it. There's a musical line in my head and I just play it. I'm not much aware of what scale I play in most of the time.

So imho scales are just vocabularies you can use. But first you have to get comfortable in using them by getting practice. It's like asking a seasoned rock guitarist to play jazz. Can be done, but it takes practice at first. Listen to a lot of material, try some things out by copying. It takes quite a while before such a new vocabulary moves from "passive" to "active" in your brain, just like it takes time & practice to speak a new language. At some point you become fluent and it's second nature.

I hope this helps... So just dive in, try things out, do whatever feels natural to you.

[Harry_HH]

When making a melody how do you determine which pentatonic scale you are going to use based on

a.)the chord progression you have made
OR
b.)just starting a blank project and only knowing your key signature

How do you determine which (pentatonic or any) scale to use?
1) The key(s) of your song
2) The melody you are playing on
3) The harmony/chord you are playing on
4) The nature of the piece you are playing, your taste, the artistic approach
you have, your skills.

You also asked "where to start the scale" - I think it can start anywhere, after you have taken account the above 4 points.

BertKoor mentioned that "In general you use them unconciously. There's something you want to say, and you just say it. There's a musical line in my head and I just play it. I'm not much aware of what scale I play in most of the time."

Yes, buy (as he also mentioned), FIRST you should (or of course you don´t have to, but I think you will be a better musician in this way) learn the basics and know what you are doing (this doesn´t necessary mean the theory but knowing the theory may help), THEN you can "forget" it. Practicing different scales is most useful, just as a physical exercise. H.

[MadBrain]

If your song is in A minor (A B C D E F G), you can also use A minor pentatonic (A C D E G).
If your song is in C major (C D E F G A B), you can also use C major pentatonic (C D E G A).

Pentatonic scales work just like diatonic scales and share the same harmonies. The difference is that minor pentatonic scale doesn't have the 2nd and the 6th degrees (so it goes 1 m3 4 5 m7), and the major pentatonic scale doesn't have the 4th and the 7th degrees (so it goes 1 2 3 5 6).

The way pentatonic scales work is that they take out the most dissonant notes, in particular the "avoid" notes - the minor 6th in minor, and the 4th in major: if you look at classical music, you'll see that they go out of their way to never stress those notes except with matching chord changes to avoid the dissonance. In pentatonic scale, since those notes don't exist, you can actually play all the notes at the same time and it will sound ok (this gives you the Am11 chord in A minor, and C69 chord in C major).

Also, pentatonic scales only apply to melody, in the song's chords you can still use the whole scale (so for instance you can use chords like F and Dm in A minor, even though they use the F which isn't in the pentatonic scale, and you'd use G and Em as well, even though they use B which isn't in the pentatonic scale either). Here's an example of this (pentatonic minor melody over diatonic minor chords).

[DBK]

Nice ^^

That put it into words really easy to understand. Now I'm embarrassed I didnt know haha.

[jancivil]

The way pentatonic scales work is that they take out the most dissonant notes, in particular the "avoid" notes - the minor 6th in minor, and the 4th in major: if you look at classical music, you'll see that they go out of their way to never stress those notes except with matching chord changes to avoid the dissonance.

Pentatonic scales are what they are horizontally, in terms of melody. Vertical consideration is surely not the foundation. Besides, there absolutely are "pentatonic scales" other than this 'major' and 'minor' which you seem to believe stems from the notion "avoid semitone" in the line.* Your hypothesis there appears to be founded in the premise that somehow the default in music is 7-note diatonic and this necessary avoidance of 'dissonance'. That notes from seven tone scales have been taken out. Whatever takes you to this notion, I can't say, but surely pentatonic usage predates diatonic, harmonic music of western Europe of ca. 17th c et postquam. It works quite apart from it.

As per "never stresses" eg., "minor 6 in minor": The primary function of the appoggiatura is to displace the tonic accent (ie., stressed tone) from a harmonic note to a non-harmonic note" (Ornamentation in JS Bach's Organ Music)
Here is a formal analysis of Beethoven Opus 101: evaluating consonant appoggiatura vs dissonant, whereby the dissonant occurrence is assessed as normative & a chief crux point... & as "realizing the dissonant potential of the appoggiatura".


__________________________________________________________________

Back on point: I first encountered pentatonics containing semitones when I was a teen, forty+ yrs ago. The stuff you're posting there is pure supposition, that isn't the real deal. It's hard to feature that, that there are the two pentatonic scales in all the world. As though EG:
*: would never happen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_scale

[jancivil]

You can play all the notes of a pentatonic scale 'and it will sound okay'. Ok, fine. You can play all the notes of a major scale and it will 'sound okay' IF IT DOES, to you. That isn't very meaningful, there is no musical context at all yet. This word dissonance was brought in as if to define some things about the pentatonic scale. Dissonance has not been defined so well. In "classical music", well there will be different considerations in different periods. A C D E G all at once, well here's three seconds, which is not usually considered consonances in "music theory" texts. Absent context, I don't think the distinction is all that useful.

But back to the original question. How do I determine <what materials> to use? Bert's point is the good point. We start with an idea. Now the idea doesn't have to be defined in these 'music theory' terms. Me, I don't typically write chord progressions. I have harmonies going on but I'm working contrapuntally. I don't have to think of scale, I don't think thinking is where it's at, the creative act is somewhat more mysterious than that. I hear lines. I have a pretty good innate sense of the intervals; I think I can safely say that's where I live.

So, you're not there yet. I would advise experimenting with materials more freely. So, A 'minor pentatonic' suits diatonic-derived triads in A minor hypothetically, but there is no recipe here. Frankly, the music illustrating that here sounds idiotic to me, and not terrifically musical. But, try that out. Try it against major. Try it against anything; find out what 'sounds okay' yourself. See what other vertical formations you can arrive at. What about stacking A D G C, is that something? You aren't formed as a musician yet, keep your options open. Dissonance as something to avoid has been inflicted on you. I don't have any use for A C D E G as "okay" per se vs. A B C D E F G as, <no, that's "dissonant">. Music is not LEGO construction, composers have ideas, and materials are not necessarily determinants, the idea is the master of the materials.

[jancivil]

For instance, a jazz person may stick to 'minor pentatonic' while harmonically all sorts of abstruse things are going on. There may be dissonance! It may happen that, in the end the pentatonic comes across as the normative bit, the solid identifying material quite apart from the clashes. (She may stick to one note for a while, for that matter; while we enjoy all the colors of it against the moving harmonies.) What's the idea? Blues guys will do the minor pentatonic as it were, over the major quality I IV and V of it all.

[fmr]

For instance, a jazz person may stick to 'minor pentatonic' while harmonically all sorts of abstruse things are going on. There may be dissonance! It may happen that, in the end the pentatonic comes across as the normative bit, the solid identifying material quite apart from the clashes. (She may stick to one note for a while, for that matter; while we enjoy all the colors of it against the moving harmonies.) What's the idea? Blues guys will do the minor pentatonic as it were, over the major quality I IV and V of it all.

And then we will not have pentatonic at all, but simply a melody with just certain notes, while the harmony has the "other" notes of the usual seven note tonal scales

It's amazing how people tend to explain ANYTHING in terms and correlated to harmony (especially "jazz" harmony), when there is an entire universe besides it. It's like they were watching the world through a locker hole.

As jancivil very well pointed, pentatonic, as the word implies, means a scale with FIVE tones. Usually, we tend to think of it as the black keys of the piano (or the same intervals with white keys), but that's not necessarily true. If you want truly pentatonic music, you will have to think of music in a horizontal way (melodies) rather than vertical way (harmonies).

The moment you introduce harmonic functions in music you enter the tonality system world, and then anything else is overriden by it. You will have tonal music, and nothing else, no matter what you pretend you are using.

[jancivil]

Well, I would say that 'minor pentatonic' may be such a strong object that its identity will be retained, but for that to be true we must retain the feeling of it grounded in its tonic regardless, the other movement passing. Essentially I'm thinking of a blues emphasis and stubborn insistence on that ground while chromaticism is well explored even as <one>, 'tonic' is never quite abandoned.

But it strikes me, too, as perverse to see an 'explanation' of it as based in harmony rules and as a version of diatonic scale. "How pentatonic scales work is..." no less. No. As though a whole culture can't get away from that, no matter what the actual material is, and is based in.

[jancivil]

For instance, a jazz person may stick to 'minor pentatonic' while harmonically all sorts of abstruse things are going on. There may be dissonance! It may happen that, in the end the pentatonic comes across as the normative bit, the solid identifying material quite apart from the clashes.

And then we will not have pentatonic at all, but simply a melody with just certain notes, while the harmony has the "other" notes of the usual seven note tonal scales

If you want truly pentatonic music, you will have to think of music in a horizontal way (melodies) rather than vertical way (harmonies).

The moment you introduce harmonic functions in music you enter the tonality system world, and then anything else is overriden by it. You will have tonal music, and nothing else, no matter what you pretend you are using.

I feel I must clarify the idea above where the soloist or lead player(s) are insisting on a 'blue' type of 'minor pentatonic' over something else moving under it, that I called 'abstruse'. I am not suggesting a classic type of functioning progression. I'm thinking of other things. Quartal planing (for an example in the literature, Satie le fils des étoiles 1st prelude. There is no key, in that you cannot call a single scale to define what's happening.) for instance. So where there is nebulous shifting, the minor pentatonic is our solid ground.

OTOH, in the situation MadBrain put forth, with example, there is a diatonic music where the tune at some point uses but five of seven notes. I agree that this particular sort of environment obviates the whole 'pentatonic' aspect. Featuring that particular example suits his lingo there. So as per the original question, 'what key' do you do this or another 'pentatonic scale', no key is prescribed through that choice in itself, there are but _five_ notes given.

[jancivil]

So, just in terms of knowledge (and not that 'you can use key of A minor for 'A minor pentatonic'' isn't useful) I have to examine the statement: "Pentatonic scales work just like diatonic scales and share the same harmonies." No, in fact they don't. If you must have a 'harmony' for D out of <A C D E G>, and all you understand to do is triads, WHICH F exists in this material, in and of itself? You gotta get a triad for E? There isn't one. Five notes don't give up a whole key. The diatonic-derived triads are_not_it. You get one on A and one on C, that's all. Also we'd be remiss not to note that 'A minor pentatonic' and 'C major pentatonic' are the very same five notes. So, again, what_is_the_idea?

We have an opportunity here to do something different, as pentatonic is actually something different than diatonic. So! What about other intervals, is going vertical with 4ths something? That way is in agreement with the actual material. Food for thought.