Writing Melodies

2. The Power of the Pentatonic

This is a principle true for nearly all popular sung melodies. Song melody tends to revolve around pentatonic scales. “Penta” means five,  and “tonic” means notes, so a  pentatonic scale is a series of five notes. The most common forms of pentatonic scales are the pentatonic major and the pentatonic minor. Here they are in C:-

Pentatonic Major Scale In C
C-D-E-G-A

Pentatonic Minor Scale In C
C-Eb-F-G-Bb

(from which we also have the blues scale by adding in the diminished fifth – F#)

Let’s take a look at “The Scientist” by Coldplay:-

The first line of the song uses four notes from this scale, in this order:-As this is in the key of F, here are the notes to F pentatonic major:-
F – G – A – C – D

F – G – F – C – A
And through out the whole of the verse, it restricts itself to just these four pitches (with a variation on the pattern at line three – notice also the “power of three” at work here). Only at the chorus do we get one new pitch (D)
F – D – C – F  -  D – C – F – D – C 
(To the words “Nobody said it was easy”)
And only on the final two lines of the chorus are there any other pitches in the whole of the melody (Bb and E). This restriction to just a few notes gives the song a nursery rhyme like quality, making it is easily remembered. And when the movement away from the pentatonic comes (on the last two lines) the notes have more impact, because we have been unconsciously anticipating a change such as this for a long time.

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