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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.
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.
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 ♭).
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 ...
In jazz, either establishing a pitch, sliding down half a step and returning to the original pitch or sliding up half a step from the original note beschleunigt (Ger.) Accelerated, as in mit beschleunigter Geschwindigkeit, at an accelerated tempo bewegt (Ger.) Moved, with speed binary A musical form in two sections: AB bird's eye
The term scale step is sometimes used synonymously with scale degree, but it may alternatively refer to the distance between two successive and adjacent scale degrees (see steps and skips). The terms " whole step " and " half step " are commonly used as interval names (though "whole scale step" or "half scale step" are not used).
Melodies can be based on a diatonic scale and maintain its tonal characteristics but contain many accidentals, up to all twelve tones of the chromatic scale, such as the opening of Henry Purcell's "Thy Hand, Belinda" from Dido and Aeneas (1689) with figured bass), which features eleven of twelve pitches while chromatically descending by half steps, [1] the missing pitch being sung later.