Modern Extensions
Traditionally, and in all uses discussed above, the term diatonic has been confined to the domain of pitch, and in a fairly restricted way. The common idea in those uses is that a specific selection is made from an underlying superset of pitches. A particular subset of seven pitch classes is selected from a superset of twelve semitonally incrementing pitch classes, to yield a particular heptatonic scale. Exactly which heptatonic scales (and even which modes of those scales) should count as diatonic is unsettled, as shown above. But the broad selection principle itself is not disputed, at least as a theoretical convenience.
Read more about this topic: Diatonic And Chromatic
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