Talk:Chromatic scale

message: If the chromatic scale is made of 12 equal semitones, how CAN one have major ande minor keys? Don't those rely on different arrangments of whole and half step intervals? Near the top it appears to say that both major and minor keys can be used.
Sometimes I wish wikipedia articles could be written for the layman seeking information rather than as an exercise for 3rd year students to show off their arcane and expert knowledge (so it seems to me sometimes). Simple wiki is no help usually. I am not stupid, butt it seems almost impossible to wade through these articles and make any sense out of them unless you have a prior education in the subject. Which seems to defeat the point (unless the point is as I previously hinted).
64.223.144.161 (talk) 23:04, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Minor?

message: Is (from C) 1212123121212123 etc really the normal fingering? 1313123131313123 etc, with the black notes always 3 (rather than mainly 2s with some 3s), seems more natural to me, and it's how I was taught. Checking my old Associated Board scale books, I see it's the fingering they recommend as well. --Camembert
I fixed it.  UninvitedCompany 22:20, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fingering 

message: #Greek definition(s) of chromatic.
#
#Modern definition(s) of chromatic
##12 tone equal tempered scale
##Includes tone rows.
----
I don't have the Shir-Cliff book referenced, but I don't understand why sixth chords in general and the dominant seventh chord are described as "chromatic". I don't know what a "chromatic chord" is if not one which includes notes not found in the prevailing diatonic scale, so in what sense are these chords chromatic (C major, GBDF dominant seventh contains chords entirely in the C major scale, after all)? Also, what is an "expanded chord"? Sorry if you were planning to expand on these things anyway, but I wanted to note this now before I forgot. --Camembert
:Yeh. I have no idea what a "chromatic chord" is either.  You should look below at my diatribe about chromaticism. And leave comments. - paros 10:16, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition History

message: Chromatic scales played a big role in music of the Baroque period (17th and early 18th centuries) in pieces like the Fantasia Chromatica of Sweelinck, music of Michelangelo Rossi, Froberger and many others. Chromatic music constituted almost a separate style of composition, defined by the melodic use of chromatic semitones (C-C#, Eb-E, etc.) which in the prevailing meantone temperament were much narrower than the diatonic semitones. The unequal temperament gave such passages a unique expressive flavour which was certainly not 'ornamental flourish'. Harmonically the chromatic scale was also very important, with the chromatic descent from I to V being often used as a bass line for laments (for example in Dido and Aeneas) or lament-like movements (Crucifixus of B minor mass) suggesting a strong expressive effect in this context also.
So I would like to incorporate these facts into the article. This would entail considerable changes in the current version, which has a big hole between the Greeks and Mozart and assumes equal temperament in the 'modern' era ... --Tdent 17:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I totally agree with you, but... what are your sources? —Keenan Pepper 00:19, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What sources does one need to give the facts that many pieces of music used chromatic scales, were entitled specifically 'chromatic fantasia' or something similar, and have a peculiar effect in the usual meantone tuning? Do you mean I should find another encyclopedia article that agrees with my observations? Perhaps the 'lament' claim does need a bit of backup... --Tdent 18:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was talking about statements like: The unequal temperament gave such passages a unique expressive flavour which was certaintly not 'ornamental flourish'. It's a valid argument, but it just seems a bit too much like original research. On the other hand, if you could find a book or a journal article or something that supported this view, that would be excellent. —Keenan Pepper 01:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your suggestions for talking about how the chromatic scale was used in baroque are perfect. I second the motion to mention them right in this article.   However, I want to scrap the entire subsection on "Chromaticism" and write an entire, separate wikipedia article on it from scratch. (more below) -paros 09:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A big hole in history... 

message: Was that link at the bottom taken over by one of those companies that gets expired domains to just put advertising sites on them? -- Myria 03:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Musicianswiki taken over by domain parker? 

message: The article uses the terms "diatonic" and "chromatic" without adequate explanation. These terms are the cause of serious uncertainties at several other Wikipedia articles, and in the broader literature. Some of us thought that they needed special coverage, so we started up a new article: Diatonic and chromatic. Why not have a look, and join the discussion? Be ready to have comfortable assumptions challenged!
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 22:23, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Diatonic and chromatic

message: Re: "The chromatic scale is the scale that contains all twelve pitches of the Western tempered scale.":
This is patently false. There was a chromatic scale, called a chromatic scale in Western music, and especially in Western music theory, millennia before equal temperament was invented. The twelve-tone equally tempered scale, in fact, is a tempering, or modification, of the Pythagorean chromatic scale. It lowers each successive 3:2 perfect fifth slightly less than two cents to eliminate the Pythagorean comma (approximately 23.5 cents). Most of the resulting intervals involve irrational numbers, which explains why it took so many centuries to implement and why, to this day, it is very far from universally accepted and even further from universally practiced. TheScotch 05:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What scale does contain all twelve pitches of equal temperament? How does your description of a scale historically described as chromatic mean that a more recent use of the term is "patently" false? Do you realize that most if not all names for modern scales at once referred to something else? Hyacinth 17:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition

message: Wikipedia is not for seizing onto whichever source you have on had and decrying all other sources as idiotic mistakes or lies. What articles do is describe the differences between sources, not eliminate sources. Hyacinth 17:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia:NPOV

message: I'm not equiped to listen, but it seems to me we already had an "audio example" here. Isn't another redundant? (Warning: If you want this to stay, you must defend it--in a reasonably timely manner.) TheScotch 07:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Audio Example: Bassoon

message: I removed the following link from the main page: .  When I downloaded it, it attempted to alter my registry and Windows Media couldn't play it.  This may simply be nothing, but as I don't know how to better investigate this, I removed the link to protect viewers until someone with better experience can fix the problem.Reverend Distopia 15:26, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Malware Audio File? 

message: "The term chromatic derives from the Greek word chroma, meaning color. Chromatic notes are traditionally understood as harmonically inessential embellishments, shadings, or inflections of diatonic notes." <== Sounds a touch biased, and not like a fact. Can anyone back it up that it's a harmonically inessential embellishment shading or inflection of diatonic notes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.255.151.59 (talk) 14:00, 27 January 2009
Bias Heck! It's down right meaningless to the person trying to learn something.  I'm trying to figure out what-the-bleep "...harmonically inessential embellishments, shadings, or inflections of diatonic notes." means.  I've been playing guitar for some time and decided to look into a few of the details of music and I am unable to decypher what this is trying to convey to the reader. I understand equal tempered to mean equal frequency ratios between half steps, but 'inessential. shading and inflection' don't address the tone orf frequency, as I was expecting in my vocabulary.   It, unfortunately, uses one of the terms the article is trying to explain (diatonic) to explain the other it is trying to explain (chromatic) and the modifying terms (...embellishments, shadings, and inflections) are quite meaningless (even if they are possibly exact in advanced music theory).  Can it be explained in easier to understand terms, such as pitch, tone frequency, or overtones?  -- Steve --  (talk) 00:32, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible bias?

message: There's a unique fingering for each instrument for a chromatic scale. why a keyboard? the only interesting thing worth mentioning in this article pertaining to a keyboard is that you play the closest key up or down to play a chromatic scale on a keyboard.
How to finger a certain scale belongs in a "how to" or piano book.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.211.123.13 (talk) 00:45, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to agree. Wikipedia isn't a :How to..." manual. I've provisionally removed the material. Feline Hymnic (talk) 21:55, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fingering... what's the use of that in this article? 

message: Why, what, where, and how does this article need additional citations for verification? Hyacinth (talk) 20:42, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Tag removed. Hyacinth (talk) 00:39, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Additional citations

message: :
*The harmonic chromatic scale has a set form that remains the same whether ascending or descending and regardless of key signature. It is created by including all the notes from both the major and minor (melodic and harmonic) scales and then adding the lowered 2nd and raised 4th degrees from the starting note. The harmonic chromatic scale therefore has every degree of the scale written twice, apart from the 5th and the key-note or starting note at the top or bottom.
The above was removed from the article, but the discussion, could have also gone on the talk page. Which major and minor scales are meant? Any parallel major and minor scale. In the example shown, C. Hyacinth (talk) 01:49, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed: Harmonic chromatic scale

message: The above were removed from the article, on the basis that there was an audio file located earlier in the article, not on the basis that there was a superior audio file in the article. Hyacinth (talk) 00:49, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed: Audio

message: ano  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.200.119.70 (talk) 10:47, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  formula 

message: On the separate pages for all of the notes of the chromatic scale, why are there separate pages for enharmonic notes?  Aren't, for instance, b flat and a sharp the same?  Margalob (talk) 01:23, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Depends what you mean by "same". In twelve-tone music they would be absolutely the same and the choice would simply be a matter of which made for easier reading. In tonal music, however, they are very different (A could be the leading tone of B major, while B could not, and would want to resolve down to A instead.) And in some historical tuning systems, they are tuned differently as well. However, there is then the question of when to stop. The current system (all single flats, naturals, and single sharps, and nothing else) seems fine to me, but perhaps some could argue that it is overkill. Double sharp (talk) 05:44, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

text: See: enharmonic. This question may have been better asked and answered if placed on the talk page of the article subject that includes B and A, Talk:Accidental (music), or on Wikipedia talk:WPMU. Hyacinth (talk) 21:18, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  enharmonic notes 

message: When an article is tagged there should be a comment added to the talk page to explain or justify the tag. This article is tagged as "too technical" with . Which parts of the article are too technical? How are they too technical (is there obscure terminology? Common yet unexplained terminology? Unexplained assumptions?)? Hyacinth (talk) 21:27, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Too technical

message: What in the world is this paragraph trying to say.  Seems like a lot of useless information.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 8.24.109.231 (talk) 18:41, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Non-Western cultures" 

message: This section has multiple issues of readability and accuracy. Limiting the definition of a chromatic scale to a single octave (defined as the interval between fundamental and first harmonic?!?) without mentioning pitch class seems odd. Claiming that the chromatic scale describes "all the notes within (and outside) the human hearing range" ignores microtonal music and expressive intonation. The second paragraph is a digression into instrument tuning, again (mistakenly) repeating the single octave limitation.
I am considering rewriting this section drastically, or removing it entirely. I will wait to see what others have to say about it before doing too much. Just plain Bill (talk) 17:06, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Structure" section 

message: all the "definitions" fail to explain the basic question a thinking persons wants to see answered: "why the hell does one divide an octave into 12 sections and why does one call them 'semitones', i.e. halfsteps (distinguishing them from whole steps)? why 12 - and not 13 or 15 or the 'halving' sequence 2, 4, 8, 16 (which would be much more 'logic') or any other arbitrary subdivision - and why not simply 12 full steps?" the answer, I guess, as an uninformed person who wanted to get informed by this enyclopedia, must lie somehow in the logic/proportion of frequencies, since an octave is defined in this way. next big unanswered question: why the hec do most scales pick just 8 out of these 12 steps? - so please do start with the basics before getting bogged down into details like the difference between a diatonic and a chromatic semitone...!! thanx in advance! HilmarHansWerner (talk) 07:35, 27 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  why the hell 12 "semitones"??