Scale

Scale in music denotes the gradation of sounds passed through between a note and its octave. In some parts of the world a pentatonic scale prevails - e.g. in Chinese and ancient Celtic music - while the tetrachord and hexachord have had their admirers; but the modern European scales are octave, and are divided into diatonic, of which there are 12 major and 12 minor, and chromatic, in which the subdivision is much more minute. Some races make shades of tone too minute to be distingnished by a European ear.