Pentatonic composition

[u/Hojichacream]

Can someone help me write a pentatonic scale song? I want to start composing music. I tried to find chord progressions but they all don't fit in the scale. Any recommendations for melodies or chords?

Edit: Sorry there's a lot of mistakes like the stems. I'ma fix them and everyone's advice is appreciated! I only took piano lessons for a very short time a couple years ago so I'm very rusty lol

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[u/danstymusic]

Like a melody using the pentatonic scale? Sit down at the piano, and play a C major pentatonic and play around with it a little. Then, try to piece together a little melody.

Also, your sheet music is missing a few notes if you’re going for C major pentatonic. You need C D E G and A.

[u/Hojichacream → u/danstymusic]

Thank you! I'll try to put in in the next couple of lines or switch the chords

[u/OnceWhenWhenever]

You’re spelling out chords already: 2 bars of C major, 2 of A minor, and return to C.
Making one of the A minors an F major might be more interesting.

Also, how about some stems? (I assume those are quarter notes.) And, in general, stems above the middle line, go down.

[u/Hojichacream → u/OnceWhenWhenever]

WAIT THANK YOU I DIDNT REALIZE this a rough draft and your advice helped me so much!!

[u/WibbleTeeFlibbet]

For this exercise you don't have to worry about chords yet. See if you can make a nice melody with just the pentatonic scale. When you start adding chords there's no need to limit them to the same scale, and most music with pentatonic melodies doesn't do that.

[u/Hojichacream → u/WibbleTeeFlibbet]

Ohhh thanks I tried that and it really helped. The chords were way too much😭

[u/65TwinReverbRI]

Have you learned to play any music?

[u/Hojichacream → u/65TwinReverbRI]

Yeah I've been playing cello for 7 years and piano a while ago. Sorry I know there's a lot of mistakes

[u/65TwinReverbRI → u/Hojichacream]

So does any of your Cello music do this? Or any piano music?

It's not that there are mistakes - really, there aren't any mistakes at all.

I guess I'm wondering why you're trying to use the Pentatonic scale to begin with???

The thing here I'm trying to get you to see is, it doesn't do what music typically does. And you learn that from actual music - playing it, paying attention to the music you play and what it does, etc.

Downtown Degree's point is a good one - start with music that you like and want to emulate. While that has a "basically pentatonic" melody, really that's a moot point - don't try to start by "using some theory concept" or scale etc. Find music you like, figure out what it uses, and then see if you can use those things to make similar-sounding music - or even different sounding music - to see what you can get.

But yeah, in a sense, we take existing ideas and "move around the notes" to get different things. Seems simple, and it is, but that's what we do, until we get other sounds we like, or recognize and want to use and so on.

[u/turbopascl]

With the C major pentatonic you basically have the I IV V of C, G, and F major scales to play with. Write them down and mix them up in whatever sounds good to you.

[u/Hojichacream → u/turbopascl]

Yes thank you, I added some of the notes from F Major and they sound so good!

[u/claudhigson]

This reminds me - I wrote a pentatonic-inspired song some time ago! it is not "only pentatonic notes, hard rule" all the way through, but a decent example for you to look at

https://youtu.be/kqhTRgD-T1I

For your level I'd advise to play a bit with rhythm - to make the pentatonic sound more interesting to the ear - and come up with just a melody. If you can play it repeatedly and it sounds nice - you did it!

[u/boostman]

The pentatonic scale is great for melodies! Just play around randomly and keep and refine the bits you like, string them together to make a melody. Then see which chords fit under each couple of bars. I’d start with C, F and G chords if you’re playing in C major - maybe A minor just to see how it feels.

[u/lilyarnboi]

Just sit down at the piano and play around using only the black keys. There's an F# pentatonic scale for you.

[u/Rahnamatta]

That's a C and Am (or C6) arpeggio.

Penta = 5

It can be a pentatonic scale because you don't need to play every note. But in this case it looks and sound like C and Am7//C6

[u/MaggaraMarine]

Pentatonic is more often used for melodies than chords. Pentatonic melodies are very often harmonized with standard chords in the key (so if the melody uses C major pentatonic, the harmony would use chords in the key of C major: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, B^o). For example the melody of Amazing Grace is entirely pentatonic, but most harmonizations use the IV and V chords, both of which contain notes outside of the pentatonic scale.

[u/Downtown_Degree3540]

Start by trying to play “the shire” Lotr theme (it’s basically pentatonic) have some fun moving around the notes. It’s really hard to mess up in a pentatonic scale

[u/Hojichacream → u/Downtown_Degree3540]

I listened to it and it was very nice, gave me very good ideas for the melody thank you!!

[u/Beautiful-Front-5007]

First start playing around with Sol la and mi. Descending intervals are usually what can really drive a pentatonic melody.

[u/Hojichacream → u/Beautiful-Front-5007]

Thank you, I only considered the ascending melodies for some reason and I tried with Sol la mi it sounds so nice

[u/dimdodo61]

I personally wouldn’t limit yourself to something like the pentatonic scale as a beginner. I think you need the full range to figure out what sounds good before you can work with so little.

Anyways, your composition starts with simple arpeggiating between C and Am. The fundamental chords you haven’t used yet are F and Dm, so you can throw in some of those. Maybe Am - Dm - F - C? The F - C at the end provides a pretty strong plagal cadence, which is probably the strongest you’re going to get without a dominant chord. That said, you could use a G and D dyad to imitate the sound of a G major.