Chances are you’ve already heard about the pentatonic scale and how it morphs regular piano-jamming into a beautiful Asian-sounding bonanza. For those of you who don’t know, a pentatonic scale is a musical scale or mode with five notes per octave, aka the black keys. Turns out, there a quite a few songs out there that can be played using only the black keys (hooray for lazy people)! For your convenience, we’ve joined together our very favorite picks below. Enjoy the wonder that is the pentatonic scale!
1. Amazing Grace – John Newton

Amazing indeed!
2. Cotton Eyed Joe – Rednex

Oh! Where did you come from, where did you go!
3. Swing Low Sweet Chariot

The good old days when travelling in the open air was cheap and affordable. #CarryMeHome indeed!
4. My Girl – The Temptations

Sing your heart out home boy. You ain’t alone now. See.What.I.Did.There.
5. Sunshine Of Your Love – Cream

Because we all act stupidly when we’re in love.
6. Stairway To Heaven – Led Zeppelin*

Climbing stairs is yesterdays news, man. Get with the programme already!
7. Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2 – Pink Floyd

Entrepreneurs aren’t born, they’re made, yo.
8. Auld Lang Syne – Robert Burns

Keep those resolutions realistic, yeah 😉
9. Ring Around The Rosie

Ugh…not the “bud” they were referring to we don’t think. :O
10. Old MacDonald Had A Farm

E-I-E-I-Oz?
11. La Fille Aux Cheveux De Lin (The Girl With The Flaxen Hair) – Claude Debussy

We’re starting to see a connection here. Straw Man Argument? :O
12. Mother Goose – Maurice Ravel

It’s like a perfect symphony!
13. Rain, Rain Go Away

Dark clouds. Black keys. If that isn’t synchronization, well we just don’t know what is.
[*A flirt with the A (natural) minor scale (which consist of A, B, C, D, E, F, G. It contains the same note as the C major scale, but the emphasis is different). It’s not uncommon to add notes to the pentatonic scale, and the minor (aeolian, if you will) scale is a very obvious candidate for adding to the minor pentatonic.]
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