pentatonic, a. (n.) Mus.
(pɛntəˈtɒnɪk)
[mod. (Carl Engel, 1864), f. penta- + Gr. τόν-ος tone + -ic: cf. tonic.]
Consisting of five notes or sounds; esp. applied to a form of scale without semitones (equivalent to the ordinary major scale with the fourth and seventh omitted), used by various ancient nations, and by certain non-European nations, as well as in the popular melodies of different countries (often called the Scotch scale). Also as n., a scale with five different notes to the octave.
| 1864 Engel Mus. Anc. Nat. 124 A scale..consisting of only five tones, wherefore I have given it the name of Pentatonic Scale. 1887 L. Scott Tusc. Stud. ii. iv. (1888) 222 The ancient scale being pentatonic, i.e. five notes, leaving out our fourth and seventh. 1891 Athenæum 12 Dec. 807/2 India..differs, as Europe differs, from the pentatonic and heptatonic scales of the Chinese and Indo-Chinese. 1909 F. R. Burton Amer. Primitive Mus. ii. 41 This scale is not what is generally known as the pentatonic, although it consists of the same tones. 1921 H. A. Popley Mus. India iii. 28 The pentatonic was the more primitive scale among all peoples. 1928 Grove's Dict. Mus. (ed. 3) IV. 100/2 If we continue..to call them gaps, we may notice that they always occur at the interval of a fourth, (or fifth); and that is the distinguishing mark of the true pentatonic. 1936 E. Blom et al. tr. Einstein's Short Hist. Mus. 5 In China the development from the non-semitonal to the seven-note scale is certainly traceable, even though the old pentatonic always remained the foundation of its music. 1962 [see heterophony]. |
Hence pentaˈtonically adv., according to a pentatonic scale.
| 1965 New Statesman 17 Dec. 980/3 The almost complete disintegration of traditional controls in those pentatonically whirling winds, those parallel-third woodwinds that are sighing trees. 1967 H. Porter in Coast to Coast 1965–66 174 ‘Good af-ter-noon, Mis-ter Pel-lot,’ melodiously and pentatonically in duet chanted the Misses Wee. |
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Add: pentaˈtonicism, pentaˈtonism ns., the property (of a melody, etc.) of consisting mostly or entirely of notes from a pentatonic scale; the practice (of a composer) of writing pentatonic music.
| 1931 M. D. Calvocoressi tr. Bartók's Hungarian Folk Music 27 Their structure is usually ABCD, and their frank pentatonism evinces their antiquity. 1965 S. Erdely Methods & Princ. Hungarian Ethnomusicol. 119 The melodic descent in bar six corresponds in the spirit of pentatonism. 1966 New Statesman 18 Nov. 756/2 The opening allegro's second-subject group, whose pentatonicism is never satisfactorily integrated. 1977 World of Music XIX. i–ii. 77 Brailoiu..also pointed out the concept of the ‘cycle of fifths’, which several other musicologists have also referred to in examining the question of pentatonism. 1986 Music & Lett. Oct. 402 True pentatonicism is not necessarily implicit in the theme. |