What is the Pentatonic scale?

The pentatonic scale is an important yet simple five note scale; usually the fourth and seventh notes of the diatonic scale are omitted.  The word "pentatonic" comes from the Greek word pente meaning five and tonic meaning tone. Pentatonic scales are the staple of rock music and are used across the world in jazz, blues, country and bluegrass as well as West African music, African-American spirituals, children's songs and Indonesian gamelan. This fact makes the pentatonic scale a very important element of learning to play a musical instrument. Children can begin to learn about making music through improvising with these notes, and since the nature of the scale means it’s impossible for the child to make any real harmonic mistakes, their confidence and enthusiasm for making music will grow.  Most of the Freenotes instruments use only the Pentatonic scale, precisely for this reason, so that children can learn about making music without the fear of playing any wrong notes!  Instilling a love of spontaneous music in children at the earliest early age.