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Notes In an Octave: Chromatic Scales In Music Are Variable
Normally there are 8 notes in an octave (hence the name!) but what if you could create chromatic scales within an octave interval that ranged from as few as three notes up to any number, with no notes repeated except the prime and octave notes?
- Pick any number of notes from the chromatic scale to create a scale of your own. However, your scale must have a minimum of three notes—the first and last notes of the octave, plus one other note in between. The maximum number of notes would be all the notes in the full chromatic scale.
- The scale must be confined to one octave, with no notes repeated except the prime and octave notes at each end.
Suppose you start with a chromatic scale of only three notes. Call the notes A, B, and A, where the two “A” notes are the notes at each end of the scale. According to the above rules, you could only have one scale, comprised of three notes.
Now suppose you start with a chromatic scale of four equally-spaced notes, A, B, C, and A (three equal intervals). According to the rules, you could create two scales comprised of three notes and one scale with four notes:
