h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Great big swathes of popular music (particularly anything owing much to blues music) are based around pentatonic scales. Most noteably E minor pentatonic, because it's easy to play on a guitar. (Well, it was the first scale I learnt on the guitar; C major came much later.) So I you might want to mention that rather than keeping it just about folk music.

The notes you list are (I think) the right ones for C major pentatonic. They're definitely the right ones for A minor pentatonic.

Thank you very much, IanG

Having never had much to do w/ popular music ('cept occasionally buying it) I have to confess to vast swathes of ignorance in this area...

Joanna (who's nails are far to long to entertain the thought of guitar playing)

Having short enough nails was never really an issue with me.

The thing that took a little getting used to was losing the feeling in your fingertips on one hand. I used to find it a bit disturbing, but I hardly notice it these days.

That must feel a little weird...

I wish I could play guitar sometimes, but then again I also wish I could play almost every other instrument in existance...

btw I ammended the entry.

Might be worth mentioning that one pentatonic scale is made from all the black notes on a piano.

Also, a lot of popular music is based around the 12 bar blues (which could form the basis for yet another entry!)

Thats the thing, there's so many things that one could mention that one has to draw the line somewhere.

Okay, I've put in each version of the minor scale too... doesn't look too messy does it?

& Maybe I'll write 12 bar blues & chords in another entry; I don't know so much about the blues, really, though.

Related advertising- You can also read about Dido & Aeneas http://www.h2g2.com/A356023 by the same author!!

Might it be worth using the sharp/flat symbols, rather than the words every time? It looks slightly cluttered (I think) at the moment.

I know... trouble is I don't know if there are html codes for them which work on every browser. I got caught like this with greek letters, I can't use symbols for them 'cause they blatently don't work in Netscape.

having checked Beelines special character page it would appear that I'm out of luck; if I use pictures they'll just get taken out.

I've always used the # and b symbols. Not ideal, but close enough. So, being a brass player I have to start with Bb major:

Bb C D Eb F G A Bb

but as a guitarist I'll grudgingly allow E harmonic minor

E F# G A B C D# E

I think it's clear enough once you've explained it. (I know of other notations suitable for use in 100% pure ASCII, but we start getting rather abstruse...)

Cheers Ian I'll do that.