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Minor second. A semitone, also called a minor second, half step, or a half tone, [3] is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, [4] and it is considered the most dissonant [5] when sounded harmonically.
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.
That means that, in A aeolian (or A minor), a scale would be played beginning in A, move up a whole step (two piano keys) to B, move up a half step (one piano key) to C, then up a whole step to D, a whole step to E, a half step to F, a whole step to G, and a final whole step to a high A.
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 ♭).
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 figure). [2] Whole steps and half steps are explained mathematically in a related article, Twelfth root of two. Notably, an equal-tempered octave has twelve half steps (semitones) spaced equally in terms of the ...
The two modes are sometimes referred to as the half-step/whole step diminished scale and the whole step/half-step diminished scale. [10] Because it was associated in the early 20th century with the Dutch composer Willem Pijper, in the Netherlands it is called the Pijper scale. [11]
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The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone, also known as a half-step, above or below its adjacent pitches. As a result, in 12-tone equal temperament (the most common tuning in Western music), the chromatic scale covers all 12 of the available pitches. Thus, there is only one chromatic scale.