Scale (music) - Western Music

Western Music

Scales in traditional Western music generally consist of seven notes and repeat at the octave. Notes in the commonly used scales (see just below) are separated by whole and half step intervals of tones and semitones. The harmonic minor scale includes a three-semitone step; the pentatonic includes two of these.

Western music in the Medieval and Renaissance periods (1100–1600) tends to use the white-note diatonic scale C-D-E-F-G-A-B. Accidentals are rare, and somewhat unsystematically used, often to avoid the tritone.

Music of the common practice periods (1600–1900) uses three types of scale:

• The diatonic scale (seven notes)—this includes the major scale and the natural minor
• The melodic and harmonic minor scales (seven notes)

These scales are used in all of their transpositions. The music of this period introduces modulation, which involves systematic changes from one scale to another. Modulation occurs in relatively conventionalized ways. For example, major-mode pieces typically begin in a "tonic" diatonic scale and modulate to the "dominant" scale a fifth above.

In the 19th century (to a certain extent), but more in the 20th century, additional types of scales were explored:

• The chromatic scale (twelve notes)
• The whole tone scale (six notes)
• The pentatonic scale (five notes)
• The octatonic or diminished scales (eight notes)

A large variety of other scales exists, some of the more common being:

• The Phrygian dominant scales (actually, a mode of the harmonic minor scale)
• The Arabic scales
• The Hungarian minor scale
• The Byzantine Musicscales (called echoi)

Scales such as the pentatonic scale may be considered gapped relative to the diatonic scale. An auxiliary scale is a scale other than the primary or original scale. See: modulation (music) and Auxiliary diminished scale.