#The chromatic scale full

On the keyboard, a semitone is the distance from one key to the next key with no key in between. From now on, chromaticism will become part of your musical baggage. There is a magic number in western music, known as the twelfth root of two, and it has a value of approximately 1.0595.This is the number that, when multiplied by itself twelve times, gives a result of two. This scale is built entirely on semitones.

You will see chromaticism here on Simplifying Theory within the studies of Diminished Chords, Target Notes, SubV7, Bebop Jazz, among others. Instead, we chose to present the use of chromaticism within each specific context. Even though some notes are outside the key of the song, when played quickly within a chromaticism these notes are “forgiven” by our ears, after all we feel as if they were passing notes, steps of a ladder that is going somewhere.įor now, we will be left with this introductory concept of chromaticism, because explaining the applications in detail would be exhaustive. The sound result produced creates a sensation of passing notes. The chromatic effect is very interesting and explored by musicians of different styles. What is usually used are small sections of chromaticism. Chromatic melodies can seem sinuous or elusive. Using the chromatic scale in a piece of music can make it sound exotic.

#The chromatic scale full

In practice, in musical contexts, the chromatic scale is not usually used to its full extent. Melodies and harmonies that use pitches that cannot be contained by a single diatonic (major or minor) scale are often considered chromatic. For example, if a particular solo has the D, D# and E notes played in sequence, it is said that this section has chromaticism. Check out the C chromatic scale below:Ĭ, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B Shape of the C chromatic scale:ĭue to this peculiar characteristic, it has become common to use the term “ chromaticism” to refer to notes separated by a semitone. Therefore, we can conclude that this scale has 12 notes (all 12 notes available for Western music!). That’s right, all notes have a range of one semitone. The chromatic scale is a scale formed by the sequence: semitone-semitone-semitone-semitone.