Genus (music) the other hand, also has twelve pitches to the octave, but the semitones are all of the same size. In contrast, the ancient Greek chromatic scale had seven tones to the octave (assuming alternating conjunct and disjunct tetrachords), and had incomposite minor thirds as well as semitones and whole tones. The (Dorian) scale generated from the chromatic genus is composed of two chromatic tetrachords: whereas in modern music theory, a chromatic scale is: The number and nature of the shades of the chromatic genus vary amongst the Greek theorists. The major division is between the Aristoxenians and the Pythagoreans. Aristoxenus
Octave oldest extant written documents on tuning are written, Sumerian and Akkadian, have no known word for "octave". However, it is believed that a set of cuneiform tablets that collectively describe the tuning of a nine-stringed instrument, believed to be a Babylonian lyre, describe tunings for seven of the strings, with indications to tune the remaining two strings an octave from two of the seven tuned strings. Leon Crickmore recently proposed that "The octave may not have been thought of as a unit in its own right, but rather by analogy like the first day of a new seven-day week". Monkeys