Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The semitone appeared in the music theory of Greek antiquity as part of a diatonic or chromatic tetrachord, and it has always had a place in the diatonic scales of Western music since. The various modal scales of medieval music theory were all based upon this diatonic pattern of tones and semitones.
The Lydian scale can be described as a major scale with the fourth scale degree raised a semitone, making it an augmented fourth above the tonic; e.g., an F-major scale with a B ♮ rather than B ♭. That is, the Lydian mode has the following formula:
By contrast, minor mode compositions of the common practice period frequently raise the seventh scale degree by a semitone to strengthen the cadences, and in conjunction also raise the sixth scale degree by a semitone to avoid the awkward interval of an augmented second. This is particularly true of vocal music.
In Greek music theory, the harmonia given this name was based on a tonos, in turn based on a scale or octave species built from a tetrachord which, in its diatonic genus, consisted of a series of rising intervals of a whole tone, followed by a semitone, followed by a whole tone.
The Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different but interrelated subjects: one of the Ancient Greek harmoniai (characteristic melodic behaviour, or the scale structure associated with it); one of the medieval musical modes; or—most commonly—one of the modern modal diatonic scales, corresponding to the piano keyboard's white notes from D to D, or any transposition of itself.
Namely, the apotome (about 113.69 cents, e.g. from C to C ♯) is the chromatic semitone, or augmented unison (A1), while the limma (about 90.23 cents, e.g. from C to D ♭) is the diatonic semitone, or minor second (m2). A ditone (or major third) is an interval formed by two major tones. In Pythagorean tuning, a major tone has a size of about ...
In music theory, a tetrachord (Greek: τετράχορδoν; Latin: tetrachordum) is a series of four notes separated by three intervals.In traditional music theory, a tetrachord always spanned the interval of a perfect fourth, a 4:3 frequency proportion (approx. 498 cents)—but in modern use it means any four-note segment of a scale or tone row, not necessarily related to a particular tuning ...
The central octave of the ancient Greek system. The earliest Greek scales were organized in tetrachords, which were series of four descending tones, with the top and bottom tones being separated by an interval of a fourth, in modern terms. The sub-intervals of the tetrachord were unequal, with the largest intervals always at the top, and the ...