The Minor Scale of the Anasazi Flute
A look at the
scales
of the Ancients
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The
Minor Scale of the Anasazi Flute In
our last look at the Anasazi flute we saw that the
Anasazi flute, like the Native American flute, has
a basic pentatonic scale. The NAF basic scale is a
minor pentatonic while the Anasazi flute's basic
scale is a major pentatonic. However the Anasazi
flute has several other scales that can be easily
played by just changing a few fingerings. One of
these is a minor pentatonic. However the Anasazi
flute's minor pentatonic is slightly modified from
the Native American flute's minor
pentatonic. A
PENTATONIC REVIEW WHAT
IS A HALF STEP? Half
steps are very easy to play on a piano.
Any two notes that are next to each other
are a half step apart. The easiest to play
is to go from one white key to a black key
that lies next to it. Another is to play
two white keys that are directly next to
one another. (There are two of these on a
piano.) In
the example below all the notes in red are
some of the half steps you can find on a
piano. There
are no half steps between any of the black
keys on a piano. That's why its so easy to
play a pentatonic scale on the the black
keys. It's built in. Let's
listen again to the basic scales of the Native
American flute and the Anasazi flute, both starting
on F#.
by
Scott August
Before we can understand why the minor scale of the
Anasazi flute is modified we need to understand a
little more about common pentatonic scales. The
most common pentatonic scale is called a
Anhemitonic pentatonic scale by
ethnomusicologists because it has no half-steps.
The so called NAF pentatonic minor scale is a
Anhemitonic pentatonic scale. You can easily play a
Anhemitonic pentatonic scale using only the black
keys of a piano.
Musical systems are broken down by the
smallest distance between tones. In the
case of the Western European scales that
we use most often in our culture (so
called Western Culture) the smallest
distance is the Half Step.
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Recordings
by
Scott
August
