Chromatic harmonica Chromatic harmonica The chromatic harmonica is a type of harmonica that uses a button-activated sliding bar to redirect air from the hole in the mouthpiece to the selected reed-plate desired. When the button is not pressed, an altered diatonic major scale of the key of the harmonica is available, while depressing the button accesses the same scale a semitone higher in each hole. Thus, the instrument is capable of playing the 12 notes of the Western chromatic scale. The chromatic harmonica can thus be contrasted with a standard harmonica, which can play only the notes in a given musical key.
Scale (music) pitches. A common scale in Eastern music is the pentatonic scale, which consists of five notes that span an octave. Some scales span part of an octave; Several such short scales are typically combined to form a scale spanning a full octave or more, and usually called with a third name of its own. The Middle Eastern music has around a dozen such basic short scales that are combined to form hundreds of full-octave spanning scales. Among these middle eastern scales Hejaz scale has one scale step spanning 14 intervals (of the middle eastern type found 53 in an octave)