(music) A musical interval equal to an augmented unison or a minor second, depending on the context and tuning system used
Used in a Sentence
semitone
Definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for semitone.
Editorial note
That way, transposing a song by a semitone is equivalent to shifting your hands by one key.
Examples15
Definitions2
Parts of speech1
Quick take
(music) A musical interval equal to an augmented unison or a minor second, depending on the context and tuning system used
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of semitone gathered in one view.
(music) Any of the pitches of the chromatic scale
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for semitone.
noun
(music) A musical interval equal to an augmented unison or a minor second, depending on the context and tuning system used
noun
(music) Any of the pitches of the chromatic scale
Example sentences
That way, transposing a song by a semitone is equivalent to shifting your hands by one key.
If a buggy is going 5m/s (18km/h) then pitch difference between approaching and receding buggy is about a half of a semitone.
The page says, about C#, > C#, which is also a musical note one semitone higher than C.
Twelve-tone equal temperament is the most common temperament in Western music, where the frequency of each semitone is the frequency of the previous semitone multiplied by the twelfth root of two.
There are others with much more finely-tuned perfect pitch, including some who claim to hear 1/8 semitone very easily.
In cents, that's about a 16 cent difference, while an equal tempered semitone is 100 cents.
There are cultures on Earth that don't use the 12-semitone chromatic scale that is near-universal today.
Going diagonally up-right gives you whole tone steps, diagonally down-right gives you semitone steps.
The laws of logarithms can help explain why these intervals are additive, whereas the semitone basis (12th root of 2) is multiplicative.
It's pretty much what you'd expect, zero-based integers that represent semitone intervals.
The basic math for the fret positions is straightforward: each semitone lower in pitch is 1.059463 2**(1.0/12) farther from the bridge than the last.
The equal-tempered major third is 14 cents higher (1 semitone = 100 cents) than a just-tempered third, which is pretty noticeable even for non-trained musician.
Quote examples
A "cent," which is 1/100 of a semitone, is a factor of about 580 parts per million, so you can work out the precision needed for the constant.
A friend of mine works AV at shows that have rotating DJs and one of the things she has on her mixer board is "The Suck Button." It causes a mic at the other end of the room to get cut into the DJ's live feed monitor with a semitone shift down and some reverb.
"Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" was built around a one- or two-bar loop sampled from Edwin Birdsong's "Cola Bottle Baby." Daft Punk determined that this loop had a tempo of 116.527 BPM and played it a semitone higher.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use semitone in a sentence?
That way, transposing a song by a semitone is equivalent to shifting your hands by one key.
What does semitone mean?
(music) A musical interval equal to an augmented unison or a minor second, depending on the context and tuning system used
What part of speech is semitone?
semitone is commonly used as noun.