Heptatonic scale are considered subsets of a twelve-pitch scale roughly analogous to the Western chromatic scale. The first and fifth melakarta tones, corresponding to the first and eighth chromatic tones, are invariable in inflection, and the fourth melakarta tone, corresponding to the sixth or seventh chromatic tone, is allowed one of two inflections only, a natural ("shuddah") position and a raised ("tivra") position. The second and third melakarta tones can be picked from the 4 chromatic tones (second through fifth), and similarly for the sixth and seventh. Thus the number of possible forms is equal to twice the square of the number
Scale (music) notes. A more mathematically flexible schema for binary representation, espoused by theorist Ian Ring in his study of musical scales, has bits representing ascending tones, with the smaller bits representing lower pitches and higher bits representing higher pitches. This causes the bits to appear reversed compared with Duncan's system. Under this schema, a major scale is 101010110101 = (2741), a single root tone is 1, and a chromatic scale is still 111111111111 (4095). All the tone possibilities that begin with a root tone, and are thus scale-like, are odd-numbered. Scales may also be shown as semitones from the tonic. For