A tetratonic 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 four

note 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 version ...

s 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. Tetratonic scales are not common in modern

art music Art music (alternatively called classical music, cultivated music, serious music, and canonic music) is music considered to be of high phonoaesthetic value. It typically implies advanced structural and theoretical considerationsJacques Siron, ...

, and are generally associated with

prehistoric music Prehistoric music (previously called primitive music) is a term in the history of music for all music produced in preliterate cultures (prehistory), beginning somewhere in very late geological history. Prehistoric music is followed by ancient mu ...

. (Reprinted, New York: Courier Dover Publications, 1991, ).

Distribution

Native American music

Tetratonic scales were common among the Plains Indians, though less common than the

pentatonic scale A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many an ...

. Amongst the Arapaho, Blackfoot, Crow, Omaha, Kiowa, Pawnee, and Sioux, as well as some Plateau tribes, especially the Flathead, the tetratonic and pentatonic scales used are anhemitonic (that is, they do not include semitones).Bruno Nettl, Victoria Lindsay Levine, and Elaine Keillor (2001), "Amerindian Music", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers, §2(ii). Tetratonic scales have also been noted among the music of the

Creek Indians The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy ( in the Muscogee language), are a group of related indigenous (Native American) peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands and in the Great Basin region among the Washo, Ute, Paiute, and Shoshone.Bruno Nettl, Victoria Lindsay Levine, and Elaine Keillor (2001), "Amerindian Music", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers, §2(v). In the

Southwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

, the Navajo people also largely used the pentatonic and tetratonic, occasionally also tritonic scales.. Citation on 305.

Inuit

Tetratonic music was known among the Inuit, including the Greenlandic peoples.

Maori

A 1969 study by ethnomusicologist

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 tetratonic scales were the second-most common type among the Maori tribes surveyed, accounting for 31% of scales used. The most common were tritonic (3-note) scales at 47%, while the third-most was ditonic (two-note) scales at 17%.

Oceania

Tetratonic music was noted as common in Polynesia and

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Va ...

. Citation on p. 146. On Guadalcanal in particular, anhemitonic pentatonic and tetratonic scales are the predominant types, although the minor second does nevertheless occasionally appear as a melodic interval. The most often used melodic intervals, however, are the major second, minor third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, and octave. Citation on p. 491.

Africa

The main instrument in the Lobi area of

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

is the xylophone, some of which are tuned to a tetratonic scale.J. H. Kwabena Nketia (2001) "Ghana, Republic of ormerly Gold Coast, ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers. In eastern Uganda, the Gwere use for their six-string harp (called ''tongoli'') a tetratonic scale in which all the intervals are nearly equal, which to Western ears sounds like a chain of

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 ...

s.Sue Carole DeVale (2001) "Harp, §III: Africa", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, London: Macmillan Publishers. In

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

, the San use a tetratonic scale approaching

5 equal temperament An equal temperament is a musical temperament or tuning system, which approximates just intervals by dividing an octave (or other interval) into equal steps. This means the ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes is the same, wh ...

, but lacking the second step.

India

Tetratonic, as well as tritonic scales, were commonly used by the tribal peoples of India, such as the Juang and Bhuyan of

Orissa Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of S ...

state.

Russia

The music of the Volga-Finnic 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 central Russia was primarily pentatonic, but used tetratonic scales 20% of the time.

Western Europe

The second-earliest scales of Scandinavian, German, English, and Scottish folk music are believed to have been pentatonic, themselves developed from an earlier tetratonic scale. Tetratonic scales, along with pentatonic scales, account for 54% of songs in the traditional '' joik'' repertoire of the European Arctic Sami people, where the singing range extends to a tenth or eleventh. Citation on p. 52. The predominant style of traditional music from the Peloponnese region of Greece is a mixture of Christian, Albanian, and

Vlach "Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Easter ...

. It employs tetratonic, pentachordal, and pentatonic scales, around the notes of which

microtonal 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 t ...

ornamentation (''stolidia''/''psevtikes'') occurs.Sotirios Chianis and Rudolph M. Brandl (2001) "Greece, §IV: Traditional Music", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, London: Macmillan Publishers.

Art music

A rare example of an art-music composition based entirely on a tetratonic scale is the early minimalist work '' Reed Phase'' (1966), by Steve Reich, which is based entirely on a single five-note cell, or "basic unit", repeated continually throughout the entire work. Because the note A occurs twice in this pattern, there are only four pitches in all.