Pentatonic 'Fro

It's totally fascinating to me that we can hear the tones of the major pentatonic scale in almost every folk music, but I get so sick of it in rock. Probably because it's a such an extremely limited context. Ramblin' Man, Dead tunes, Octopus's Garden, etc.

But Afropop has enamored me for a long time - it used to be because of the guitars, but now, as I get older, it's just the complete freedom of the music - rhythmically, harmonically, melodically, the overall feeling. The major pentatonic is almost all they use - five notes - but without analyzing the music, you'd SO never know it - it sounds adventurous and diverse.

It's always been my theory that the folk music of an oppressed people sounds the most bittersweet and often happy - e.g. African and Jewish. You can hear and feel the pain in what sounds like positively-charged music.

I got back on this kick because I'm in middle of writing a tune (Sun Goes Down) which I think I'll be adding Afropop guitars to, and a West African beat. Not in the way Vampire Weekend ripped it off, but more in the way Paul Simon absorbed it into his music in the 80s. It's really exciting, like painting with a new brush. Anyway, here I am again, after all these years of avoiding it, toying around with major pentatonic... if I only had an mbira.

Here's Thomas Mapfumo, an AMAZING Afropop artist (read about his life - unreal stuff). Gracias to my bud Matt W. for showing me his music.