![Ditonic scale on G](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Ditonic_scale_on_G.png)
A ditonic scale is a musical
scale or
mode
Mode ( la, modus meaning "manner, tune, measure, due measure, rhythm, melody") may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* '' MO''D''E (magazine)'', a defunct U.S. women's fashion magazine
* ''Mode'' magazine, a fictional fashion magazine which is ...
with two
notes
Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to:
Music and entertainment
* Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music
* ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian
* ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versio ...
per
octave. This is in contrast to a
heptatonic
A heptatonic scale is a musical scale that has seven pitches, or tones, per octave. Examples include the major scale or minor scale; e.g., in C major: C D E F G A B C—and in the relative minor, A minor, natural minor: A B C D E F G A; the m ...
(seven-note) scale such as the
major scale
The major scale (or Ionian mode) is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. It is one of the diatonic scales. Like many musical scales, it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at double ...
and
minor scale
In music theory, the minor scale is three scale patterns – the natural minor scale (or Aeolian mode), the harmonic minor scale, and the melodic minor scale (ascending or descending) – rather than just two as with the major scale, which ...
, or a
dodecatonic (chromatic 12-note ) scale, both common in modern Western music. Ethnomusicologist
Bruno Nettl
Bruno Nettl (14 March 1930 – 15 January 2020) was an ethnomusicologist who was central in defining ethnomusicology as a discipline. His research focused on folk and traditional music, specifically Native American music the music of Iran an ...
noted that ditonic scales were common in many parts of the world but often limited to specific music types, such as
children's songs
A children's song may be a nursery rhyme set to music, a song that children invent and share among themselves or a modern creation intended for entertainment, use in the home or education. Although children's songs have been recorded and studied ...
, with the exception of some tribal societies.
Distribution
Russia
The Cheremis (
Mari people
The Mari ( chm, мари; russian: марийцы, mariytsy) are a Finnic people, who have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama rivers in Russia. Almost half of Maris today live in the Mari El republic, with significant populations in ...
) of Russia employ ditonic scales in children's songs, generally with the two notes a
minor third
In music theory, a minor third is a musical interval that encompasses three half steps, or semitones. Staff notation represents the minor third as encompassing three staff positions (see: interval number). The minor third is one of two com ...
apart. Nettl theorised that these ditonic songs may be a remnant of a more archaic form of music.
Peru
The
Shipibo
The Shipibo-Conibo are an indigenous people along the Ucayali River in the Amazon rainforest in Peru. Formerly two groups, the Shipibo and the Conibo, they eventually became one distinct tribe through intermarriage and communal ritual and are c ...
people of Amazonian Peru used ditonic scales in approximately 2.5% of their music. The ditonic was found "almost exclusively in the complex ostinato songs."
Vietnam
The ''
ca dao'' folk poetry of Vietnam is sometimes sung in ditonic scales.
North America
Several ditonic scales were noted about the
Modoc and
Klamath tribes
The Klamath Tribes, formerly the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon, are a federally recognized Native American Nation consisting of three Native American tribes who traditionally inhabited Southern Oregon and Northern California in the United St ...
of the North American West Coast, and are also found in the
Great Plains in the rituals of the 1800s
Ghost Dance religion. The scale was also used in the music of the
Shawnee
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...
.
India
The ditonic scale type is recognised in Indian music, and termed the ''Dvisvara'' ("two tone"), but ditonic scales are not recognised as
raga scales.
Nigeria
The ditonic is among the scale types employed in traditional
Nigerian music
The music of Nigeria includes many kinds of folk and popular music, styles of folk music are related to the multitudes of ethnic groups in the country, each with their own techniques, instruments, and songs. Little is known about the country's ...
.
Maori
In a study carried out in 1969,
Mervyn McLean
Mervyn is a masculine given name and occasionally a surname which is of Old Welsh origin, with elements ''mer'', probably meaning "marrow", and ''myn'', meaning "eminent".
Despite the misconception of the letter 'V' being an English spelling, thr ...
noted that among the Maori tribes he surveyed, ditonic scales comprised 17% of the scales used.
References
{{Scales
Musical scales