Diatonic and chromatic

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Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, especially when applied to contrasting features of the common practice music of the period 1600–1900.^[1]

These terms may mean different things in different contexts. Very often, diatonic refers to musical elements derived from the modes and transpositions of the "white note scale" C–D–E–F–G–A–B (see details below).^[2] In some usages it includes all forms of heptatonic scale that are in common use in Western music (the major, and all forms of the minor).^[3] Chromatic refers to structures derived from the chromatic scale, which consists of all semitones.