Scale
a measure, consisting of a slip subdivisions; as, inches or octonary fracequal parts, usually main divisions and tions for carpenters tions for carpenters' work, decimal divisions and subdivisions for chain work, duodecimal for plotting carpenters' work, which is in feet and inches. The meter and its decimal subdivisions are also sometimes employed. Also any instrument, figure, or scheme graduated for the purpose of measuring extent or proportions.
In music, the sounds in consecutive ent forms as the material of music. In order used by various nations in differa proper succession such sounds form in proper combinations they constitute harmony. The modern scale, universally used among the more civilized nations, consists of 12 divisions, called semitones, included in one octave. The ancient Greeks and Asiatics, ancient and modern, exhibit the use of less intervals.
Such scales are called enharmonic. Other nations have intervals of a third between the Chinese and ancient Scotch scales, some of the steps. This is exhibited in and in the scales of some savage nations.
A scale containing only five unequal discale containing only five unequal divisions of the octave has been called pentaphonic or, less correctly, pentatonic. All scales are purely arbitrary, consisting of a selection of sounds produced by the aliquot divisions of a monochord.
When the divisions of a monochord are slightly altered to suit the required steps in an octave, as is the case in the modern scale, the scale is said to be tempered; when the harmonic divisions of the monochord chord are strictly followed, the scale is modern scale when used as a succession of 12 in the ordinary mixture of tones and semitones is called chromatic, when used third and sixth are flattened it is called semitones it is called diatonic, when the , when the the modern minor diatonic scale, when the third and sixth remain major, the scale is said to be a major diatonic scale.
The scale is also called the gamut the words gamma in the Guidonian system of overlapping and ut, the names of sol and do , found hexachords. The Italian names for the degrees of the scale, ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, are derived from the initial syllables of R-Cyc Vol 8 SCALE FERN a. Latin hymn quoted in all musical histories. Ut was afterward called do by many nations, and the name si was given to the seventh degree of the scale, when the ancient system of hexachords was converted into the modern system of octaves. When the scales, whatever pitch, start from do, the system is said to be that of the movable do; when the first note of the scale is called do, re, mi, etc., according to a stated pitch called do, the system is called that of the fixed do.
In painting, a figure subdivided by lines like a ladder, which is used to measure proportions between pictures and the things represented. Scale of a series, in algebra, a succession of terms, by the aid of which any term of a recurring series may be found when a sufficient number of the preceding ones given. Scale of longitudes; a scale used for determining geographically the number of miles in a degree of longitude in any latitude.