Scale (music)
In music, a scale is any sequence of musical notes in an ascending or descending order. Sometimes, scales contain both an ascending and a descending portion.
Often, especially in the context of the common practice period, part or all of a musical work including melody and/or harmony, is built using the notes of a single scale, which can be conveniently represented on a staff with a standard key signature.
The notes of a scale are ordered in pitch or pitch class. A measure of the distances (or intervals) between pairs of adjacent notes provides a method to classify scales. For instance, a major scale is defined by the interval pattern T-T-S-T-T-T-S, where T stands for whole tone, and S stands for semitone. Based on their interval patterns, scales are divided into categories including diatonic, chromatic, major, minor, and others.
A specific group of notes can be described, for instance, as a C-major scale, D-minor scale, etc.. This takes into account the selection of a special note, also known as the first degree (or tonic) of the scale. For example, C-major indicates a major scale in which C is the tonic.
Read more about Scale (music): Western Music, Naming The Notes of A Scale, Scalar Transposition, Jazz and Blues, Non-Western Scales, Microtonal Scales
Famous quotes containing the word scale:
“The poet is the person in whom these powers are in balance, the man without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience, and is representative of man, in virtue of being the largest power to receive and to impart.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)