---
title: The Power of the Pentatonic Scale
canonical: https://0110.be/posts/The_Power_of_the_Pentatonic_Scale
markdown_url: https://0110.be/posts/The_Power_of_the_Pentatonic_Scale.md
id: 387
published_at: '2011-12-06T14:05:56Z'
updated_at: '2013-12-05T18:19:15Z'
author: Joren
tags:
- name: Computational musicology
  markdown_url: https://0110.be/tags/Computational%20musicology.md
- name: HoGent
  markdown_url: https://0110.be/tags/HoGent.md
- name: Tarsos
  markdown_url: https://0110.be/tags/Tarsos.md
- name: featured
  markdown_url: https://0110.be/tags/featured.md
---

# The Power of the Pentatonic Scale

The following video shows Bobby McFerrin demonstrating the power of the pentatonic scale. It is a fascinating demonstration of how quickly a (western) audience of the World Science Festival 2009 adapts to an unusual tone scale:

<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ne6tB2KiZuk?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ne6tB2KiZuk?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></object>

With Tarsos the scale used in the example can be found. This is the result of a quick analysis: it becomes clear that this, in fact, a pentatonic scale with an unequal octave division. A perfect fifth is present between 255 and 753 cents:

<center>
<img src="https://0110.be/files/attachments/387/scale_bobby.png" alt="A pentatonic scale, demonstrated by Bobby McFerrin"/>

</center>


![The pentatonic scale](https://0110.be/files/photos/387/audio_pitch_class_histogram.png)

![Tarsos analysing a scale](https://0110.be/files/photos/387/tarsos_on_bobby.png)

![The pentatonic scale](https://0110.be/files/photos/387/scale_bobby.png)

- [scale\_bobby.png](https://0110.be/files/attachments/387/scale_bobby.png)

- [audio\_pitch\_class\_histogram.tex](https://0110.be/files/attachments/387/audio_pitch_class_histogram.tex)

- [audio\_pitch\_class\_histogram.pdf](https://0110.be/files/attachments/387/audio_pitch_class_histogram.pdf)