Quarter-comma meantone each kind, a perfect fifth of meantone contains four diatonic and three chromatic semitones, and an octave seven diatonic and five chromatic semitones, it follows that: Thus, in Pythagorean tuning, where sequences of just fifths (frequency ratio 3:2) and octaves are used to produce the other intervals, a whole tone is and a major third is An interval of a seventeenth, consisting of sixteen diatonic and twelve chromatic semitones, such as the interval from D to F, can be equivalently obtained using either This large interval of a seventeenth contains staff positions. In Pythagorean tuning, the size of a seventeenth
Short octave "C/E", meaning that the lowest note is a C, played on a key that normally would sound E. A second type of short octave used the keys to play the G major scale Here, the exotic bass notes C and D are sacrificed to obtain the more essential A and B. The notation for the pitch range of such an instrument is "G/B". The following diagram illustrates this kind of short octave: In stringed instruments like the harpsichord, the short octave system created a defect: the strings which were tuned to mismatch their keyboard notes were in general too short