# Chromatic scale (Greek chroma, "colour")

Source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/chromatic-scale

**A chromatic scale is a scale made entirely of semitones, using all twelve pitches within an octave rather than the seven of a major or minor scale.**

Because it uses every available pitch, a chromatic scale has no key: it sounds the same starting anywhere, which is precisely why composers use it for tension, transition, and the absence of a harmonic home.

On a string instrument it is fingered differently going up and coming down in many systems, and the standard exercise is to slide one finger between adjacent semitones rather than to place a new finger for each, a technique that trains both intonation and small-scale shifting at once.

Written chromatic passages usually use sharps ascending and flats descending, which is a notation convention about direction rather than a claim that the pitches differ.

Canonical source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/chromatic-scale