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It is defined as the interval between two adjacent notes in a 12-tone scale (or half of a whole step), visually seen on a keyboard as the distance between two keys that are adjacent to each other. For example, C is adjacent to C ♯ ; the interval between them is a semitone.
The intervals between neighboring white keys are irregular: sometimes a whole step (C–D) and at others a half step (E–F). The combination of white and black keys and the pitch-to-key distance and vector is irregular. New players must watch the keyboard, instead of reading the score.
(Of course, there are non-diatonic keys available for chromatic half, whole, and minor 3rd steps in either direction.) Once a scale has been set, it is possible to play melodic sequences without altering fingering to compensate for half-step, whole-step alternation in a given scale or mode, and the spatial elements of physically moving low to ...
For instance, in a chromatic scale each scale step represents a semitone interval, while a major scale is defined by the interval pattern W–W–H–W–W–W–H, where W stands for whole step (an interval spanning two semitones, e.g. from C to D), and H stands for half-step (e.g. from C to D ♭).
On a musical keyboard, a major second is the interval between two keys separated by one key, counting white and black keys alike. On a guitar string, it is the interval separated by two frets. In moveable-do solfège, it is the interval between do and re. It is considered a melodic step, as opposed to larger intervals called skips.
This pattern of whole and half steps characterizes the natural minor scales. The intervals between the notes of a natural minor scale follow the sequence below: whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole, whole. where "whole" stands for a whole tone (a red u-shaped curve in the figure), and "half" stands for a semitone (a red angled line in the ...
For example, C to D (major second) is a step, whereas C to E (major third) is a skip. More generally, a step is a smaller or narrower interval in a musical line, and a skip is a wider or larger interval with the categorization of intervals into steps and skips is determined by the tuning system and the pitch space used.
In music theory a diatonic scale is a heptatonic (seven-note) scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps. In other words, the half steps are maximally separated from each other.