Everything about Diatonic Scale totally explained
In
music theory, a
diatonic scale (from the Greek
διατονικος, meaning "[progressing] through tones", also known as the
heptatonia prima and
set form 7-35) is a seven-note musical
scale comprising five whole-tone and two half-tone steps, in which the half-steps are maximally separated. Thus between each of the two half-steps lie either two or three whole-steps, with the pattern repeating at the
octave. The term
diatonic originally referred to the
diatonic genus, one of the three
genera of the ancient Greeks.
These scales are the foundation of the European
musical tradition. The modern major and minor scales are diatonic, as were all of the 'church'
modes. What are now called major and minor were, during the
medieval and
Renaissance periods, only two of seven
modes formed by a diatonic scale beginning on each of the seven notes of the octave; thus, the half-steps were positioned at different distances from the starting tone in each of these seven scales. By the start of the
Baroque period, the notion of musical
key was established—based on a central triad rather than a central tone. Major and minor scales came to dominate until at least the start of the 20th century, partly because their intervallic patterns are suited to the reinforcement of a central triad. Some church modes survived into the early 18th century, as well as appearing occasionally in
classical and
20th century music, and later in
modal jazz.
Using the 12 notes of the
chromatic scale, 12 major and 12 minor scales can be formed. The modern
musical keyboard, with its black notes grouped in twos and threes, is essentially diatonic; this arrangement not only helps musicians to find their bearings on the keyboard, but simplifies the system of
key signatures compared with what would be necessary for a continuous alternation of black and white notes. The black (or "short") keys were an innovation that allows the adjacent positioning of most of the diatonic whole-steps (all in the case of C major), with significant physical and conceptual advantages.
Theory of diatonic scales
Technically speaking, diatonic scales are obtained from a
chain of six successive
fifths in some version of
meantone temperament, and resulting in two
tetrachords separated by
intervals of a
whole tone. If our version of meantone is the twelve tone
equal temperament the pattern of intervals in
semitones will be 2–2–1–2–2–2–1; these numbers stand for whole tones (2 semitones) and half tones (one semitone). The
major scale starts on the first note and proceeds by steps to the first octave. In
solfege, the syllables for each scale degree are "Do–Re–Mi–Fa–So–La–Ti–Do".
The
natural minor scale can be thought of in two ways, the first is as the
relative minor of the major scale, beginning on the sixth degree of the scale and proceeding step by step through the same tetrachords to the first octave of the sixth degree. In
solfege "La–Ti–Do–Re–Mi–Fa–So–La." Alternately, the natural minor can be seen as a composite of two different tetrachords of the pattern 2–1–2–2–1–2–2. In solfege "Do–Re–Mi–Fa–So–La–Ti–Do."
Western
harmony from the
Renaissance until the
late 19th century is based on the diatonic scale and the unique
hierarchical relationships, or
diatonic functionality, created by this system of organizing seven notes. Most longer pieces of
common practice music
change key, which leads to a hierarchical relationship of diatonic scales in one key with those in another.
The diatonic scale has specific properties that mark it out among seven-note scales.
David Rothenberg conceived of a property of scales he called
propriety, and around the same time
Gerald Balzano independently came up with the same definition in the more limited context of equal temperaments, calling it
coherence. Rothenberg distinguished
proper from a slightly stronger characteristic he called
strictly proper. In this vocabulary, there are five proper seven-note scales in
12 equal temperament. None of these is strictly proper, for example, coherent in the sense of Balzano; but in any system of
meantone tuning with the fifth flatter than 700
cents, they're strictly proper. The scales are the diatonic,
ascending minor,
harmonic minor,
harmonic major, and
locrian major scales; of these, all but the last are well-known and constitute the backbone of diatonic practice when taken together.
Among these four well-known variants of the diatonic scale, the diatonic scale itself has additional properties of what has been called
simplicity, because it's produced by iterations of a single generator, the meantone fifth. The scale, in the vocabulary of
Erv Wilson, who may have been the first to consider the notion, is sometimes called a
MOS scale.
The diatonic collection contains each interval class a unique number of times (Browne 1981 cited in Stein 2005, p.49, 49n12).
Diatonic set theory describes the following properties, aside from propriety:
maximal evenness,
Myhill's property,
well formedness, the
deep scale property,
cardinality equals variety, and
structure implies multiplicity.
| C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
A |
B |
C |
| 1 |
9/8 |
5/4 |
4/3 |
3/2 |
5/3 |
15/8 |
2 |
The earliest diatonic scales
The earliest claimed occurrence of diatonic tuning is in the 45,000 year-old so-called "
Neanderthal flute" found at
Divje Babe. Although there's no consensus that this is a musical instrument, there has been one claim that it played a diatonic scale.
There is other evidence that the
Sumerians and
Babylonians used some version of the diatonic scale. This derives from surviving inscriptions which contain a tuning system and musical composition. Despite the conjectural nature of reconstructions of the piece known as the
Hurrian hymn from the surviving score, the evidence that it used the diatonic scale is much more soundly based. This is because instructions for tuning the scale involve tuning a chain of six fifths so that the corresponding circle of seven
major and
minor thirds are all consonant-sounding, and this is a recipe for tuning a diatonic scale. See
Music of Mesopotamia.
9,000 year old
flutes found in
Jiahu, China indicate the evolution, over a period of 1,200 years, of flutes having 4, 5 and 6 holes to having 7 and 8 holes, the latter exhibiting striking similarity to diatonic hole spacings and sounds .
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