World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale

It's the exact same thing. They know that the next one is higher because that's the way lower to higher works. If there's a bigger space between, the bigger the next one is going to be. Could be a big space between 1 and 2, leading to a more gradual change, or just one step, leading to the small scale he created. I'm no scientist, but this isn't anything spectacular.

But they're not just recognising that the sounds are lower or higher... He sang two adjacent notes in the scale and when he bounced to the next note up they all knew what it was. They detected the frequency difference between the two notes he sang and were able to instinctively extrapolate what the next note would be, not to mention all the other notes below and above they sang later. That's much more than just noticing that one note was higher than the other.

The (major) pentatonic scale, which McFerrin relied on, is the traditional music scale used in China, Mongolia, and oddly enough, Scotland. It differs from "classical western" or "heptatonic" scales significantly enough that to try to lay the credit on "lower tone to higher tone" recognition on the part of the audience assumes they're not more familiar with western music - unlikely.

If you can't identify Ionian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Phrygian, and Dorian modes, study music theory more.

... thats obvious. We all know that sounds go from lower tone to higher tone. Thats general knowledge of how low to high works. Same reason we can organize shit from biggest to smallest. If a sound is lower we can adjust our voice to make it higher. It has nothing to do with KNOWING the scale. It's just organizing sounds in your brain to understand that it's lower to higher.

It's a real song. I can't remember the name. I'll get back to you when I remember.

@ultimatezlover2004 "One of the first scales in history". This is funny. Please enlighten me; who invented this scale? :p

/irony

very nice,

Cheers.

As much as I wish it was a song, chances are it's just another one of his amazing improvised works.

i love it!! LOVE IT!!

Does the song he starts to sing at 1:18 have a name? It's sooo...heavenly