Chromatic
Moving by semitones rather than by the steps of a scale, so every pitch in the range is used.
Chromatically moving material fills in all the gaps between the notes of a key, which creates tension and a sense of travel. On guitar, chromatic lines are easy to produce because consecutive frets are consecutive semitones, which is why sliding a single finger along a string produces an instant chromatic run. Players use them for passing passages, for fill-in lines and for the tension before a key change, but a fully chromatic passage with no anchor sounds unresolved.
Example: A line that walks up a single string one fret at a time rather than following a scale is chromatic.
See also
Related
- PageInterval
- PageMajor scale
- PageAccidental
- PageAugmented chord
- PageBlue note
- PageBlues scale
- PageAaron Dessner
- PageAce Frehley