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Heptatonic scale

A heptatonic scale is a musical scale that has seven pitches, or tones, per octave. Examples include:

Indian classical theory postulates seventy-two seven-tone scale types, collectively called melakarta or thaat, whereas others postulate twelve or ten (depending on the theorist) seven-tone scale types.


Several heptatonic scales in Western, Roman, Spanish, Hungarian, and Greek music can be analyzed as juxtapositions of tetrachords.[1] All heptatonic scales have all intervals present in their interval vector analysis,[2] and thus all heptatonic scales are both hemitonic and tritonic. There is a special affinity for heptatonic scales in the Western key signature system.

(natural minor) t-s-t-t-s-t-t

Aeolian mode

Chinese Gongche notation[edit]

Gongche notation heptatonic scale gives a do, re, mi, (between fa and fa), sol, la, (between ti and ti) heptatonic scale.

Diatonic and chromatic

Modes of the ancohemitonic heptatonic scales and the key signature system