chromatic scale
nounDefinition of chromatic scale
: a musical scale consisting entirely of half steps
Examples of chromatic scale in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The overture began promisingly, sedate and serene — with the Pilgrim’s Chorus theme, which returns near the end in the brasses, played over quiet, downward chromatic scales in the strings. — Joshua Barone, New York Times, "Review: A New ‘Tannhäuser’ Brings Burger King to Bayreuth," 26 July 2019 One method, the Von Luschan chromatic scale, invented 36 different categories by comparing skin color to opaque colored tiles. — Arielle Pardes, WIRED, "Pinterest Wants to Diversify Your Search Results," 26 Apr. 2018 Now, rather than being limited to the five digits that evolution has given us, a pianist could playing by issuing mental instructions to 12 virtual fingers, one for each note on the chromatic scale (all the white and black keys in an octave). — R. Douglas Fields, Scientific American, "Wristband Lets the Brain Control a Computer with a Thought and a Twitch," 27 Mar. 2018 The overture began promisingly, sedate and serene — with the Pilgrim’s Chorus theme, which returns near the end in the brasses, played over quiet, downward chromatic scales in the strings. — Joshua Barone, New York Times, "Review: A New ‘Tannhäuser’ Brings Burger King to Bayreuth," 26 July 2019 One method, the Von Luschan chromatic scale, invented 36 different categories by comparing skin color to opaque colored tiles. — Arielle Pardes, WIRED, "Pinterest Wants to Diversify Your Search Results," 26 Apr. 2018 Now, rather than being limited to the five digits that evolution has given us, a pianist could playing by issuing mental instructions to 12 virtual fingers, one for each note on the chromatic scale (all the white and black keys in an octave). — R. Douglas Fields, Scientific American, "Wristband Lets the Brain Control a Computer with a Thought and a Twitch," 27 Mar. 2018These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'chromatic scale.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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