Pentatonic Scale | Pentatonic Scale KS2 | Pentatonic Scale Songs | What is the Pentatonic Scale?

Hey guys! I am really excited about today's video. Firstly because it's a collaboration with our friends from Learning Mod, who make really cool videos for home learning. And secondly I'm super excited because today we're going to learn to improvise! That's right, I've written a song just for you guys, which is called the Pentatonic Scale Song. And it goes a little something like this. Just get myself set up. Okay, ready, steady, here we go. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 5, 3, 2. This is the pentatonic scale. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 5, 8, 5. This is what we're gonna do. We're gonna improvise. So let's get back to playing that tune. Cool huh? Right, now we're gonna get our voices warmed up. So firstly we are going to pretend that we're chewing a really big piece of chewing gum. It's the biggest piece you've ever had in your life. Then we are going to pretend to do a huge silent scream followed by a face of disgust as if we've eaten something that we really don't like. Off we go. Great! Now we are going to be bees and we're gonna get closer and further away. Great! Now we're gonna pretend that we're sports cars and we're accelerating. Accelerating and accelerating until we fall off a cliff. And finally we're gonna cast some spells around the room. Great! Now let's get learning that pentatonic scale song. Okay, so the pentatonic scale has two really important words in it which are scale and pentatonic. A scale is basically what makes up all music. It's a bit like the ingredients for a cake or a meal if music is the meal. The scale that a lot of Western music is based on has eight notes that climb up a ladder in steps and it sounds a bit like this. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. You can go up the scale and you can go down the scale. Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. And in music those different steps on the scale are just jumbled up into a different order to make something that sounds cool. The other word pentatonic means five notes and penta by itself comes from the ancient word for five. Which is why the word pentagon means a shape with five sides. Just like the pentagon building in America. So what does a pentatonic scale with five notes sound like? Well actually there are a few different types of pentatonic scales but the one we are going to learn is a major pentatonic scale and it's really popular all over the world in many different genres of music. Do you remember that scale ladder that we just sung which went up to eight? Well it's similar to that but we are just going to skip some of the notes in a scale. It goes like this. One, two, three, five, six, eight. Now did any of you find that there was a problem with that? How many notes did I sing? I'll sing it again for you. One, two, three, five, six, eight. That's right there were six notes. Okay so here's where it gets really clever. I'm going to sing one and then eight and then both together. One, eight, and. Can you hear that eight is actually the same note as one? Just a higher version of it. In fact any scale just starts again when you get to the eighth note. The eighth note is called an octave and octa or octo is also the ancient word for eight. The shape for eight is just like the shape for infinity because it never ends and what's really cool is that in music when you get to the eighth note you can just repeat what you did in a higher version and that can go on for infinity getting higher and higher and higher and higher. So now you're going to sing the pentatonic scale but I'm going to start low because I have a low rumbling voice and you can start higher than me if you like as long as we're on the same note. Ready? Here we go. One, two, three, five, six, eight, six, five, three, two, one. Should we have another go at that? Here we go. One, two, three, five, six, eight, six, five, three, two, one. Great! Okay the first line goes like this. One, two, three, five, six, five, three, two. Let's have a go together. One, two, three, five, six, five, three, two. Once more. One, two, three, five, six, five, three, two. Cool! Now let's learn the second line. This is the pentatonic scale. Should we have a go together? This is the pentatonic scale. Last time. This is the pentatonic scale. Cool! Now let's stick those lines together. Ready? One, two, three, five, six, five, three, two. This is the pentatonic scale. Once more. One, two, three, five, six, five, three, two. This is the pentatonic scale. Great! Okay now we're going to move on to the third line and this time we're going to jump all the way up to the eighth note or the octave. It goes like this. One, two, three, five, six, five, eight, five. Now it's your turn. Ready? One, two, three, five, six, five, eight, five. Great! And the fourth line goes like this. This is what we're gonna do. Together now. This is what we're gonna do. Cool! Let's stick the third and fourth lines together. Ready? One, two, three, five, six, five, eight, five. This is what we're gonna do. Awesome! Now let's stick all of that together. Ready? Steady? Here we go. One, two, three, five, six, five, three, two. This is the pentatonic scale. One, two, three, five, six, five, eight, five. This is what we're gonna do. Cool! Let's have another go. Ready? Steady? Here we go. One, two, three, five, six, five, three, two. This is the pentatonic scale. One, two, three, five, six, five, eight, five. This is what we're gonna do. So we've now learned almost all the tune already. The next bit goes super low, so if you want to stay higher you can if you prefer. It goes like this. We're gonna improvise, improvise. We're gonna improvise, improvise. So let's get back to playing that tune. Now let's have a go together at the improvise line, which we're going to do three times in a row. Ready? Steady? Off we go. We're gonna improvise, improvise. We're gonna improvise, improvise. We're gonna improvise, improvise. Great! And now what we need to do is stick on the last line. So let's get back to playing that tune. Let's have a go. So let's get back to playing that tune. Cool! And now let's put the last line together with the improvise line, which happens three times. Remember? Okay. Ready? Steady? Off we go. We're gonna improvise, improvise. We're gonna improvise, improvise. We're gonna improvise, improvise. So let's get back to playing that tune. Awesome! Why don't you have another go at that just for luck? Ready? Steady? Off we go. We're gonna improvise, improvise. We're gonna improvise, improvise. We're gonna improvise, improvise. So let's get back to playing that tune. We've now learned the whole tune. Why don't we stick the first part and the second part together now and let's use the band too. Ready? Steady? Off we go. One, two, three, five, six, five, three, two. This is the pentatonic scale. One, two, three, five, six, five, eight, five. This is what we're gonna do. We're gonna improvise. Let's get back to playing that tune. Great! So now we have learned the hook of the song, which is just like the chorus. It's the part of the song where everyone knows the words because it's the part of the song which is repeated again and again and again. But now we are going to practice what happens in between, which is where we are going to improvise. Improvising is where you make up music on the spot. An easy way to think about it is to compare it to dancing because usually when you're dancing you're doing whatever you feel like and making it up as you go along or improvising. The times that you aren't making it up is usually when you've learned a specific choreography or some dance moves that have been taught to you. The pentatonic scale hook that we just learned is like the choreographed section of the song and the rest of the song will be improvised. There are a couple of things that make it easier and more exciting to improvise. Most of the interest actually comes from doing really interesting rhythms rather than changing the notes. So to start with we're just going to improvise on one note that we can practice some exciting rhythms on. I'm going to start and I'm going to try and improvise a fun rhythm on note three for four bars. Then you are going to improvise a fun rhythm also on the third note. Just sing three. Ready, steady, here we go. Three, three, three. Three, three, three. Three, three, three, three. Awesome. Now let's have a go at exactly the same thing but we're going to sing note five. Same thing. I'll go first and then it's your turn. Ready, steady, here we go. Cool. Getting the hang of it? Now what we're going to do is we're going to make it a bit harder. We're going to sing five and six. So we've got six, five. Same thing. You get four bars and I get four bars too but I'm going first. Ready, steady, here we go. Six, five. Six, five. Six, five. Six, five. Six, five. Six, five. Cool. Now we're going to add another note. We're going to add three. So we've got six, five, three. Cool. Ready, steady, here we go. Six, five, three. Three, five. Five, five. Five, six, five, three. Great. Okay. Now we're just going to open it up to all the notes. So we've got one, two, three, five, six, eight. Ready, steady, here we go. Eight, six, five. Eight, six, five. Six, five. Three, two, one, one. Cool. Should we have another go at that? That one's quite fun, isn't it? Okay. Here we go. Ready, steady, here we go. Three, three, two, one. Three, two, one. Three, five. Three, five, six, five, eight. Amazing. You've just been improvising for the last few minutes. Do you remember when we extended the scale as high as we could go on the piano? Well, we can do the same thing with our voices. Shall we try and go to the top and the bottom of our voices? Let's do it twice each and I'll start. Ready, steady, off we go. Three, five, six, five. Eight, eight, three, two, one. Five, six. One, one, one. One, six, five. Six, five, three. When I sing, I like to sing the numbers of the notes because I think that it helps me to think about which notes I'm actually singing. But if you find the numbers are confusing you, or if you're just bored of the numbers, you can scat sing instead. Scat singing is basically where you pick any sound that you want to make. It could be something simple like a letter sound, or you can use a word. But whatever you do, it really doesn't have to make sense. Something like this perhaps. So, why don't we try taking it in turns? I'll go first, but just for a short time this time, and then you can have a go. We can do it four times each. Try any sounds that you like. Nonsense sounds, or just random words. Awesome! Right, shall we see what it's like when we add the improvising section to the pentatonic hook? This is how it's going to work. We are going to sing all the way through the hook once, and then we are going to take it in turns to improvise, just like we have been. We will have a go four times each before going back to the pentatonic hook. I'm going to play my cello this time too. Then we will have another go at improvising four times each, and finally we will end with another pentatonic hook. Right, this is the big one, so we're going to bring the band back again. Ready? Steady? Off we go! Let's get back to playing that tune. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 5, 3, 2, this is the pentatonic scale. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 5, 8, 5, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna improvise. Let's get back to playing that tune. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 5, 3, 2, this is the pentatonic scale. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 5, 3, 2, this is the pentatonic scale. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 5, 8, 5, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna improvise. Let's get back to playing that tune. And that's it! Poor Blimey, I'm exhausted after all that jumping around. I hope you enjoyed learning the pentatonic scale song. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, like us on Facebook, and check back here again for your next dose of making music with Dunedin Council. Bye for now!