I’ve got a lot of fun YouTube discoveries this month for you,  HarmonyWishes community.  So get ready to strap in and take the visual (or auditory) journey.

This latest find I stumbled upon while on the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) video site.  (The link is actually via YouTube).  TED hosted a conversation about “Notes & Neurons” and the common, almost innate connection humans have to the Pentatonic scale. If you don’t know what a Pentatonic scale is, don’t worry, me neither. I had to look it up.  “A Pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five pitches per octave in contrast to a Heptatonic (seven note) scale such as the major scale.”  Apparently, Pentatonic scales are very common around the world, found in Celtic music, West African music, rock, blues, melodies from Korea, China, India.  The list goes on.

In this video you’ll see musician Bobby McFerrin demonstrate the very ingrained notes of the Pentatonic scale with the audience.  He comments that no matter where he performs this exercise, whatever country, the result is the same–”everyone gets it.”

It’s sometimes hard to believe in our giant world that we all could share some innate capabilities or instincts.  Here at HarmonyWishes our mission is to embrace and encourage diversity and tolerance.  Exploring our differences, as well as our common characteristics, whether through music, ideas, images or sound, is important to us.  We’d love to hear your stories of commonality in unexpected places.  You can share it with us here on the blog, or send us a line.

Happy May!

Cheers,

Megan