Editing Pentatonic scale (section)

== Role in education ==
The pentatonic scale plays a significant role in [[music education]], particularly in [[Orff Schulwerk|Orff-based]], [[Kodály method|Kodály-based]], and [[Waldorf education|Waldorf]] methodologies at the [[Primary education|primary or elementary]] level.

The Orff system places a heavy emphasis on developing creativity through [[improvisation]] in children, largely through use of the pentatonic scale. [[Orff instruments]], such as [[xylophones]], [[bell (instrument)|bells]] and other [[metallophones]], use wooden bars, metal bars or bells, which can be removed by the teacher, leaving only those corresponding to the pentatonic scale, which [[Carl Orff]] himself believed to be children's native tonality.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Eclectic Curriculum in American Music Education: Contributions of Dalcroze, Kodaly, and Orff |year=1972 |publisher=Music Educators National Conference |isbn=978-0-940796-03-4 |author=Beth Landis |author2=Polly Carder |location=Washington D.C. |page=82}}</ref>

Children begin improvising using only these bars, and over time, more bars are added at the teacher's discretion until the complete [[diatonic scale]] is being used. Orff believed that the use of the pentatonic scale at such a young age was appropriate to the development of each child, since the nature of the scale meant that it was impossible for the child to make any real [[harmony|harmonic]] mistakes.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://thekeep.eiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=lib_awards_2013_docs |author=Amanda Long |access-date=1 May 2015 |publisher=Eastern Illinois University |title=Involve Me: Using the Orff Approach within the Elementary Classroom |series=The Keep|page=7}}</ref>

In Waldorf education, pentatonic music is considered to be appropriate for young children due to its simplicity and unselfconscious openness of expression. Pentatonic music centered on intervals of the fifth is often sung and played in early childhood; progressively smaller intervals are emphasized within primarily pentatonic as children progress through the early school years. At around nine years of age the music begins to center on first folk music using a six-tone scale, and then the modern diatonic scales, with the goal of reflecting the children's developmental progress in their musical experience. Pentatonic instruments used include lyres, pentatonic flutes, and tone bars; special instruments have been designed and built for the Waldorf curriculum.<ref>Andrea Intveen, [https://voices.no/index.php/voices/article/viewArticle/547/408 Musical Instruments in Anthroposophical Music Therapy with Reference to Rudolf Steiner's Model of the Threefold Human Being] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120402142734/https://voices.no/index.php/voices/article/viewArticle/547/408 |date=2012-04-02 }}</ref>