Chromatic scale Chromatic scale The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone above or below its adjacent pitches. As a result, in 12-tone equal temperament (the most common temperament in Western music), the chromatic scale covers all 12 of the available pitches. Thus, there is only one chromatic scale. Moreover, in equal temperament, all the semitones have the same size (100 cents). As a result, the notes of an equal-tempered chromatic scale are equally-spaced. This makes the chromatic scale a nondiatonic scale with no tonic because of the symmetry of its equally-spaced notes. The ascending and descending
Symmetric scale degrees are symmetrical if read from the "top" (end) or "bottom" (beginning) of the scale (mirror symmetry). Examples include the Ukrainian Dorian b9 scale (sixth mode of the Hungarian Major scale), the Jazz Minor b5 scale (fifth mode of the involution of Hungarian Major), the Neapolitan Major scale (fourth mode of the Major Locrian scale), the Javanese slendro, the chromatic scale, whole-tone scale, Dorian scale, the Aeolian Dominant scale (fifth mode of the melodic minor), and the double harmonic scale. Asymmetric scales are "far more common" than symmetric scales and this may be accounted for by the inability of symmetric