Semitone facts for kids

A musical keyboard. The black note between C and D is called either C sharp or D flat

A semitone (British English) (also called a half step or a half tone) is the smallest musical interval used in Western music. It is the distance between two notes which are next to one another in pitch.

A whole tone means a distance of two semitones, i.e. the distance between two notes which are separated by one other note in pitch.

This is easy to see with a picture of a keyboard. The distance between two white notes that are side by side may be a whole tone (if there is a black note in between them) or a semitone (if there is no black note between).

To go from a C to a C sharp (or D flat) is a semitone.

To go from a C sharp (or D flat) to a D is a semitone.

To go from a C to a D is a tone.

An octave is divided into twelve semitones. These semitones are exactly equal in size.

Related pages

• Scale (music)
• Interval (music)
• Circle of fifths
• Chromaticism

• Grout, Donald Jay, and Claude V. Palisca. A History of Western Music, 6th ed. New York: Norton, 2001. ISBN: 0-393-97527-4.
• Hoppin, Richard H. Medieval Music. New York: W.W. Norton, 1978. ISBN: 0-393-09090-6.

Images for kids

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  Augmented unison on C

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  Franz Liszt's second Transcendental Étude, measure 63

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  16:15 diatonic semitone

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  Relationship between the 4 common 5-limit semitones

See also

In Spanish: Semitono para niños