According to composer Percy Goetschius, "Altered... chords contain one or more tones written with accidentals (, , or ) and therefore foreign to the scale in which they appear, but nevertheless, from their connections and their effect, obviously belonging to the principal key of their phrase." Richard Franko Goldman argues that, once one accepts, "the variability of the scale," the concept of altered chords becomes unnecessary: "In reality, there is nothing 'altered' about them; they are entirely natural elements of a single key system," and it is, "not necessary," to use the term as each 'altered chord' is, "simply one of the possibilities regularly existing and employed."