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
Pentatonic scale Pentatonic scale A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the more familiar heptatonic scale that has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale). Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancient civilizations—an indication that pentatonic scales are based upon a naturally occurring phenomenon. They are still used all over the world, for example (just to name a few) Chinese music and US country music and blues. There are two types of pentatonic scales: those with semitones (hemitonic) and those without (anhemitonic). Pentatonic scales occur in the following