The chromatic scale (or twelve-tone scale) is a set of twelve
pitches (more completely,
pitch class
In music, a pitch class (p.c. or pc) is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart; for example, the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves. "The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs, in whatever octave positio ...
es) used in
tonal music, with notes separated by the
interval of a
semitone
A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically.
It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...
.
Chromatic instruments, such as the
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
, are made to produce the chromatic scale, while other instruments capable of continuously variable pitch, such as the
trombone
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...
and
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
, can also produce
microtones
Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of tw ...
, or notes between those available on a piano.
Most music uses subsets of the chromatic scale such as
diatonic scale
In music theory, a diatonic scale is any heptatonic scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps, ...
s. While the chromatic scale is fundamental in western
music theory
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...
, it is seldom directly used in its entirety in
musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called ...
s or
improvisation
Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
.
Definition
The chromatic scale is a
musical scale
In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale.
Often, especially in the ...
with twelve
pitches, each a
semitone
A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically.
It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...
, also known as a half-step, above or below its adjacent pitches. As a result, in
12-tone equal temperament
Twelve-tone equal temperament (12-TET) is the musical system that divides the octave into 12 parts, all of which are equally tempered (equally spaced) on a logarithmic scale, with a ratio equal to the 12th root of 2 ( ≈ 1.05946). That resultin ...
(the most common tuning in Western music), the chromatic scale covers all 12 of the available pitches. Thus, there is only one chromatic scale.
In equal temperament, all the semitones have the same
size
Size in general is the Magnitude (mathematics), magnitude or dimensions of a thing. More specifically, ''geometrical size'' (or ''spatial size'') can refer to linear dimensions (length, width, height, diameter, perimeter), area, or volume ...
(100
cents), and there are twelve semitones in an
octave
In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...
(1200 cents). As a result, the notes of an equal-tempered chromatic scale are equally-spaced.
The ascending and descending chromatic scale is shown below.
:
Notation
The chromatic scale has no set
enharmonic spelling that is always used. Its spelling is, however, often dependent upon
major or minor key signatures and whether the scale is ascending or descending. In general, the chromatic scale is usually notated with
sharp signs when ascending and
flat signs when descending. It is also notated so that no
scale degree is used more than twice in succession (for instance, G – G – G).
Similarly, some notes of the chromatic scale have enharmonic equivalents in
solfege. The rising scale is Do, Di, Re, Ri, Mi, Fa, Fi, Sol, Si, La, Li, Ti and the descending is Ti, Te/Ta, La, Le/Lo, Sol, Se, Fa, Mi, Me/Ma, Re, Ra, Do, However, once 0 is given to a note, due to
octave equivalence
In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...
, the chromatic scale may be indicated unambiguously by the numbers 0-11
mod twelve. Thus two perfect fifths are 0-7-2.
Tone row
In music, a tone row or note row (german: Reihe or '), also series or set, is a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets ...
s, orderings used in the
twelve-tone technique
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...
, are often considered this way due to the increased ease of comparing inverse intervals and forms (
inversional equivalence).
Pitch-rational tunings
Pythagorean
The most common conception of the chromatic scale before the 13th century was the
Pythagorean chromatic scale (). Due to a different tuning technique, the twelve semitones in this scale have two slightly different sizes. Thus, the scale is not perfectly symmetric. Many other
tuning system
In music, there are two common meanings for tuning:
* Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice.
* Tuning systems, the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases.
Tuning practice
Tun ...
s, developed in the ensuing centuries, share a similar asymmetry.
In Pythagorean tuning (i.e. 3-limit
just intonation
In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals
Interval may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers
** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to ...
) the chromatic scale is tuned as follows, in perfect fifths from G to A centered on D (in bold) (G–D–A–E–B–F–C–G–D–A–E–B–F–C–G–D–A), with sharps ''higher'' than their
enharmonic
In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note, interval, or key signature that is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature but "spelled", or named differently. The enharmonic spelling of a written n ...
flats (cents rounded to one decimal):
:
where is a diatonic semitone (
Pythagorean limma
A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically.
It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...
) and is a chromatic semitone (
Pythagorean apotome
A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically.
It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...
).
The chromatic scale in Pythagorean tuning can be tempered to the
17-EDO tuning (P5 = 10 steps = 705.88 cents).
Just intonation
In 5-limit
just intonation
In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals
Interval may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers
** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to ...
the chromatic scale, Ptolemy's intense chromatic scale, is as follows, with flats ''higher'' than their enharmonic sharps, and new notes between E–F and B–C (cents rounded to one decimal):
:
The fractions and , and , and , and , and many other pairs are interchangeable, as (the
syntonic comma
In music theory, the syntonic comma, also known as the chromatic diesis, the Didymean comma, the Ptolemaic comma, or the diatonic comma is a small comma type interval between two musical notes, equal to the frequency ratio 81:80 (= 1.0125) ...
) is tempered out.
Just intonation tuning can be approximated by
19-EDO tuning (P5 = 11 steps = 694.74 cents).
Non-Western cultures
The ancient
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
chromatic scale is called ''
Shí-èr-lǜ
''Shí-èr-lǜ'' (, , ''12 pitches'') (twelve-pitch scale) was a standardized gamut of twelve notes. Also known, rather misleadingly, as the Chinese chromatic scale, it was one kind of chromatic scale used in ancient Chinese music. The Chinese sc ...
''. However, "it should not be imagined that this
gamut
In color reproduction, including computer graphics and photography, the gamut, or color gamut , is a certain ''complete subset'' of colors. The most common usage refers to the subset of colors which can be accurately represented in a given circ ...
ever functioned as a
scale, and it is erroneous to refer to the 'Chinese chromatic scale', as some Western writers have done. The series of twelve notes known as the twelve ''lü'' were simply a series of
fundamental notes from which scales could be constructed."
[ Needham, Joseph (1962/2004). ''Science and Civilization in China, Vol. IV: Physics and Physical Technology'', pp. 170–171. .] However, "from the standpoint of tonal music
he chromatic scale!--"it"--> is not an independent scale, but derives from the diatonic scale,"
making the ''Western chromatic scale'' a gamut of fundamental notes from which scales could be constructed as well.
See also
*
Atonality
*
Chromaticism
*
Twelve-tone technique
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...
*
20th century music#Classical
*
"All Through the Night" (Cole Porter song)
Notes
Sources
Further reading
*Hewitt, Michael. 2013. ''Musical Scales of the World''. The Note Tree.
External links
The Chromatic Scale arranged for guitar in several fingerings. (Formatted for easy printing)Chromatic Scale – Analysis
{{Twelve-tone technique
Chromaticism
Musical scales
Post-tonal music theory
Musical symmetry
Hemitonic scales
Tritonic scales