Scale (music)

In music, a scale is a set of musical notes in order by pitch, either ascending or descending.

Related Topics:
Music - Notes - Pitch

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A scale is contrasted with a musical mode in one of two ways:

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• as a pattern of notes or pitches regardless of tonic or other notes' importance, as opposed to a scale with a tonic and possible frame
• as an ordered collection of notes or pitches, as opposed to a series of intervals, which is a musical mode.

Each note in a scale is referred to as a scale degree. Though the scales from musical traditions around the world are often quite different, the pitches of the notes in any given scale are usually related by mathematical rules.

Related Topics:
Scale degree - Musical traditions around the world - Pitches - Mathematical rules

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Scales may be described according to the intervals they contain, for example

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• tonal, modal, diatonic, derived, chromatic, synthetic

or by the number of different pitch classes they contain:

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• most common: pentatonic, hexatonic, heptatonic or five, six, and seven tone scales, respectively.
• used in prehistoric music: ditonic or two, tritonic or three, tetratonic or four
• in modern classical music: octatonic or eight.

Scales are often abstracted from performance or composition, though they are often used precompositionally to guide or limit a composition. One or more scales may be used in a composition, such as in Claude Debussy's L'Isle Joyeuse.

Related Topics:
Performance - Composition - Precompositional - Claude Debussy - L'Isle Joyeuse

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Scale (music): Scales in Western music ►