Burning Down

For engineers, yeah. But in music education it can be an abbreviation for diatonic. It depends on who your instructors are.

anathematized_one

Depends on origin.

diatonic (adj.)
c.1600, from French diatonique, from Latin diatonicus, from Greek diatonikos, from diatonos "extending; pertaining to the diatonic scale," from dia- (see dia-) + teinein "to stretch" (see tenet).

In Greek, literally translates as "through the tones" but means, even in original context with DIATONIC, 7-tone scale (that's what they understood as being "through the tones"). Just like schizophrenia literally translates from Greek as "split mind" but that's not the understanding they had of it (they didn't at all believe it to be the mind being split in two or anything like that).

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Sardonicus
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Lord Larehip

I don't know what the point is that you're making here. I'm saying that "dia-" doesn't mean "seven" but rather "across".

Burning Down

You're arguing semantics here.

anathematized_one

It goes back to Pythagorean mathematics and theory, it means 7. It only means through in Latin contexts and is completely irrelevant, diatonic is ALWAYS a 7 tone scale, so it doesn't matter.

Dia also means "day" in Spanish. So the point I was making is that it is found in many languages and means something different in each. Regardless, to the ancient Greek Pythagoreans, it meant the 7 tone scale, regardless of literal translation.

It is not going to do anything but confuse somebody new to theory, like the OP, to debate a highly irrelevant point.

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Sardonicus
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Lord Larehip

Next, you'll be telling me "chromatic" means "12".

Burning Down

I'm not sure why you're so hung up on what these words actually mean. Accept that it's the standard terminology for music theory.

anathematized_one

All right, now you're starting to get really annoying and stupid.

"Dia" as in diatonic from Greek roots means, regardless of literal translation or how much of an arse you want to be, SEVEN tone scale... PERIOD.

End of discussion. I told you the history and where the root comes from for the word diatonic and what it meant to the people who first used it.

And chromatic means "skin-like". So the chromatic scale means all the tones in the ancient Grecian sense.

I know this may be a hard concept for somebody so full of themselves to understand, but some words in other languages translate literally in a way far different than their actual understood meaning.

Now jog on before I get a mod in here.

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Sardonicus
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Burning Down

I'm already in here haha

Lord Larehip

The Greek word "chroma" CAN mean skin but it means color. And the word chromatic as used in music refers to color not to skin. I'll leave it to you to puzzle out why.

And stop telling me that it's irrelevant. It's NOT irrelevant and it's NOT a matter semantics. It's a matter of correct translation--PERIOD! You're either propagating accurate information or you're spouting BS. It can't be both at the same time. It's either right or it's wrong. In your case, it's WRONG.