Octatonic Scale

An octatonic scale is any eight-note musical scale. Among the most famous of these is a scale in which the notes ascend in alternating intervals of a whole step and a half step, creating a symmetric scale. In classical theory, in contradistinction to jazz theory, this scale is commonly simply called the octatonic scale, although there are forty-two other non-enharmonically equivalent, non-transpositionally equivalent eight-tone sets possible. In jazz theory this scale is more particularly called the diminished scale (Campbell 2001, p. 126), or symmetric diminished scale (Hatfield 2005, p. 125), because it can be conceived as a combination of two interlocking diminished seventh chords, just as the augmented scale can be conceived as a combination of two interlocking augmented triads. The earliest systematic treatment of the octatonic scale was Edmond de Polignac's unpublished treatise, "Etude sur les successions alternantes de tons et demi-tons (Et sur la gamme dite majeure-mineure)" from c. 1879 (Kahan 2009), which preceded Vito Frazzi's Scale alternate per pianoforte of 1930 by a full half-century (Sanguinetti 1993). The term octatonic pitch collection was first introduced into English by Arthur Berger in 1963 (Van den Toorn 1983).