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Publish the Obsidian vault's Knowledge folder as /knowledge (881 notes, 67 folders), with a Knowledge item in the nav and footer. - scripts/import_knowledge.py regenerates data/knowledge from the vault: slugged paths, folder notes as index pages, wikilinks resolved to site links (or plain text), callouts, highlights, and Dataview tables rendered statically. Personal notes are withheld via an exclusion list plus a privacy guard. - tuftecms/core/knowledge.py builds a concept index from note titles and aliases. First mentions on ordinary pages link to their Knowledge note (capped, never in headings, code, links, or sidenotes); Knowledge pages list related notes and where they're mentioned across the site; other pages get a Related Knowledge block. - Knowledge URLs join sitemap.xml (so the sweep test covers them), never displace existing legacy slugs, list alphabetically, and mermaid diagrams render client-side only on pages that have them.
40 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
40 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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description: Every door in the building, all at once.
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source: obsidian-knowledge
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---
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# Chromatic Scale
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> *Every door in the building, all at once.*
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---
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## The Scale
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The chromatic scale is not really a scale in the ordinary sense — it is the full inventory of pitches from which all other scales are carved. It contains all twelve tones of Western equal temperament, each a half step from the next, dividing the octave into its smallest standard increments. Where a diatonic scale is a selection, a set of choices about which notes belong, the chromatic scale makes no choices at all. Its name comes from the Greek *chroma*, colour, and the metaphor is apt: if the diatonic scale is the drawing, the chromatic notes are the full palette from which any colour can be drawn.
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## Structure
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| Attribute | Value |
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|-----------|-------|
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| Notes (from C) | C C♯ D D♯ E F F♯ G G♯ A A♯ B |
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| Interval formula | All half steps |
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| Number of notes | 12 |
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| Defining feature | Every pitch; pure colour and passing motion |
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## Character
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Because every interval is identical, the chromatic scale has no tonal centre and no internal hierarchy — no note pulls harder than any other, so it cannot establish a key on its own. Played straight, it sounds like motion without destination, a smooth glide or a nervous run. Its power is not as a melody but as a source of tension and colour: a chromatic passing tone slipped between two diatonic notes adds friction and forward momentum that the plain scale degrees cannot supply.
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## In Practice
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In tonal music the chromatic scale mostly appears in fragments — passing tones, chromatic runs, sighing appoggiaturas that decorate an otherwise diatonic line. Composers from the Romantics onward pushed it further, until the twentieth century made it structural: serialism and twelve-tone technique treat all twelve notes as equals. In jazz and film scoring, chromatic movement supplies unease, glamour, and the sense of a harmony sliding out from under your feet.
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## Related
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- [Whole Tone](/knowledge/music/scales-and-modes/scales/whole-tone)
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- [Diminished](/knowledge/music/scales-and-modes/scales/diminished)
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- [Ionian](/knowledge/music/scales-and-modes/modes/ionian)
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- [Scales & Modes](/knowledge/music/scales-and-modes)
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- [Musical Keys](/knowledge/music/musical-keys)
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