Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Relating to a standard musical scale: Describes music, scales, or intervals that are based on the natural notes of a major or minor scale, without using chromatic alterations (sharps or flats outside the key signature).
   • Using only the tones of a given key: Pertaining to the seven pitches that form a major or minor scale, moving in whole steps and half steps according to a fixed pattern.

Examples of Usage

• Adjective:
  • The melody is purely diatonic, using only notes from the C major scale.
  • Early folk songs often have a simple, diatonic harmony.
  • This passage contrasts a diatonic section with a more chromatic one.

Advanced Usage

• "Diatonic harmony": Chords and progressions built exclusively from the notes of a given major or minor scale.

  • The composer's early work is characterized by its use of simple diatonic harmony.

• "Diatonic function": The role of a note or chord within a key, such as tonic, dominant, or subdominant.

  • Understanding diatonic function is essential for analyzing classical music.

Variants and Related Words

• Diatonically (adverb): In a diatonic manner.

  • The piece moves diatonically through the scale.

• Diatonicism (noun): The quality or system of being diatonic.

  • The diatonicism of the hymn gives it a familiar, solid sound.

Synonyms

• Tonal (in the specific sense of using the notes of a key; though "tonal" is a broader term).
• Scalar (relating to or based on a scale).

Antonyms

• Chromatic: Involving notes outside the diatonic scale, using sharps, flats, and semitones not native to the key.
  • The shift from a diatonic to a chromatic passage created tension.

Related Phrases and Concepts

• Diatonic scale: The specific pattern of whole and half steps that defines a major or natural minor scale.

  • The major diatonic scale follows the pattern: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half.

• Diatonic chord: A chord whose notes all belong to the underlying diatonic scale.

  • In the key of G major, the chord F# diminished is not a diatonic chord.

Adjective

1. based on or using the five tones and two semitones of the major or minor scales of western music
2. based on the standard major or minor scales consisting of 5 tones and 2 semitones without modulation by accidentals