Scale (music)
Intra-scale intervals

Some scales use a different number of pitches. A common scale in Eastern music is the pentatonic scale, which consists of five notes that span an octave. For example, in the Chinese culture, the pentatonic scale is usually used for folk music and consists of C, D, E, G and A, commonly known as gong, shang, jue, chi and yu.

Some scales span part of an octave; several such short scales are typically combined to form a scale spanning a full octave or more, and usually called with a third name of its own. The Turkish and Middle Eastern music has around a dozen such basic short scales that are combined to form hundreds of full-octave spanning scales. Among these scales Hejaz scale has one scale step spanning 14 intervals (of the middle eastern type found 53 in an octave) roughly similar to 3 semitones (of the western type found 12 in an octave), while Saba scale, another of these middle eastern scales, has 3 consecutive scale steps within 14 commas, i.e. separated by roughly one western semitone either side of the middle tone.

Gamelan music uses a small variety of scales including Pélog and Sléndro, none including equally tempered nor harmonic intervals. Indian classical music uses a moveable seven-note scale. Indian Rāgas often use intervals smaller than a semitone. Turkish music Turkish makams and Arabic music maqamat may use quarter tone intervals. In both rāgas and maqamat, the distance between a note and an inflection (e.g., śruti) of that same note may be less than a semitone.
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