The Japanese mode is a pentatonic musical scale commonly used in traditional Japanese music. The intervals of the scale are major second, minor third, perfect fifth and minor sixth (such as the notes A, B, C, E, F and up to A ja:ヨナ抜き音階.), essentially a natural minor scale in Western music theory without the subdominant and subtonic, the same operation performed on the major scale to produce the pentatonic major scale. The more correct term would be kumoijoshi, as given by William P. Malm for one of the three tuning scales of the koto adapted from shamisen music.
