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Whole tones in the pentatonic scale

How does the pentatonic scale 'contain' whole tones?

Piano keyboard with whole tone intervals in pentatonic scale

The first three notes of the common pentatonic scale are a whole tone apart from each other and sound like this:

These are exactly the same three notes which can be heard in the brass at the beginning of Emerging Dances.

David Horne also uses these same intervals to start each of the fast descending scales in the piccolo, oboe and violins, which accompany the brass at the beginning of the piece.

Here are the whole-tone intervals from the pentatonic scale again …

… and here are the fast descending scales.

So, David Horne uses the whole tones from the pentatonic scale to build up a chord in the brass and also to build up the scales which accompany the brass in the piccolo, oboe and violins. The whole tone is used both ‘vertically’, in the chord, and ‘horizontally’, in the scales.

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