Activities

• Pentatonic Singing & Improv: Open the pentatonic solfège ladders from the anthology here. 

  • • Point & Sing: Have a classmate or instructor point to syllables on the ladder while the class sings each. Start with adjacent motion, then practice skipping between syllables in both the major and minor collections. 

    • Call & Response: Play or sing a 3–5 note pattern on a neutral syllable (e.g. "da")  that uses one of the compound rhythms from the lesson. The class sings back the melody using solfège syllables. 

    • Improvisation: Practice improvising melodies using only notes in the pentatonic collection. Sing a 3–5 note melody.  Incorporate rhythmic patterns from the lesson. Your partner picks up where you left off, starting their melody on the syllable you ended on. 

• Sight-Singing from Jianpu cipher notation: Work through the directions and activities in these slides  as a class to learn to read Jianpu cipher notation. Try sight-singing passages from huangmei opera (a theatrical tradition based in Anhui China). Attached material from the slides is linked below: 

  • • Anna Yu Wang's handout for reading Jianpu cipher notation. 

    • Scores for sight-singing from huangmei opera:

      • • "山伯描药 shanbo miaoyao" (See pronunciation & translation here)

        • "手提羊毫喜洋洋 shouti yanghao xiyangyang" (See pronunciation & translation here)

• Pentatonic Dictation: Transcribe the melody to the song “Hama-chidori” (1919) with music by Hirota Ryûtarô and lyrics by Kashima Meishû. As you transcribe, think about whether or not the accompaniment is pentatonic like the melody.

  • • Handout

    • Recording

Want to learn more? 

Here's a playlist featuring several curious versions of “Hama-chidori.”

Here's an article by the Vietnamese musicologist Tran Van Khe discussing notions of pentatonic universalism.