Tone and semitone
The semitone is the smallest distance this music uses: two adjacent piano keys, counting the black ones. A tone is two semitones, that is, skipping one key. Everything else is measured with those two units, which is why they come before the names: an interval is nothing but how many semitones there are, and a major scale is nothing but a fixed pattern of tones and semitones. On the keyboard you see it at once: between E and F, and between B and C, there is no black key in between, and that is where the scale's two semitones fall.
Where this sits
- Comes after
- Closer or further
- Opens up
- Intervals
Exercises from this rung
Generated by the app, from easiest to hardest
How far apart are the two notes?
- A tone and a half
- A semitone
- A tone
- Two tones
Why They were 2 semitones apart: a tone. On the piano a semitone is two adjacent keys counting the black ones, and a tone means skipping one. Everything else is counted in this unit: an interval is how many semitones there are, and a major scale is a fixed pattern of tones and semitones.