In music, a fourth is an
interval spanning four
s in the
musical notation
Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The proce ...
common in
Western culture
Western culture, also known as Western civilization, European civilization, Occidental culture, Western society, or simply the West, refers to the Cultural heritage, internally diverse culture of the Western world. The term "Western" encompas ...
.
Specific fourth intervals include:
*
Perfect fourth
A fourth is a interval (music), musical interval encompassing four staff positions in the music notation of Western culture, and a perfect fourth () is the fourth spanning five semitones (half steps, or half tones). For example, the ascending int ...
, the fourth spanning five semitones
*
Diminished fourth, a perfect fourth narrowed by a chromatic semitone, thus spanning four semitones
*
Augmented fourth
Augment or augmentation may refer to:
Language
*Augment (Indo-European), a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages
* Augment (Bantu languages), a morpheme that is prefixed to the noun class prefix of nouns ...
or tritone, an interval of three adjacent whole tones (six semitones)
In addition, fourth in music may refer to:
*
Quartal harmony, harmonic structures built from the perfect fourth, the augmented fourth and the diminished fourth
*
Subdominant
In music, the subdominant is the fourth tonal degree () of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance ''below'' the tonic as the dominant is ''above'' the tonicin other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdomina ...
, the fourth tonal
degree of the
diatonic scale
In music theory a diatonic scale is a heptatonic scale, heptatonic (seven-note) scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by eith ...
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