Playing around with the Pentatonic Scale

I was checking out Skepchick’s blog, (primarily to see what all the hub-bub about the skepchick calendar was about and to preorder my skepdude calendar for Myles come next Xmas) and came upon this video.  The performer in this video remarks at the end that no matter where he performs this act, every audience uses the pentatonic scale.  This seemed odd to me, as the majority of Arab songs are written in the “eastern scale”.  When I was in Morocco, every song used this Eastern or Persian scale; songs on the radio, snake charmers, even people whistling as they walked down the street.  I guess they are raised to hear that scale and hold a preference towards it, but perhaps if the beginning of a pentatonic scale is played, the mind will deduce how the rest of the scale is formed.

I don’t know if I embedded the video correctly, so here’s a link http://vimeo.com/5732745

Update: embedded. -JayAaroBe