Adding more notes

Let's expand the collection to 12 pitches. This is all of the note names that are commonly used (plus an additional C an octave higher):

This is another type of scale, called the chromatic scale.

(The black keys on the piano can also be represented with the ♯ (sharp) symbol. "A♯/B♭" is read as "A sharp" or "B flat.")

Try making some music with all 12 pitches (note that the chromatic scale has no notion of a central tonic, so no notes are highlighted):

When working with all 12 notes, you might have found that it's easy to make patterns that sound unusual or "wrong." Most music makes use of only smaller subsets of these 12 notes (such as the seven notes of the major or minor scales), and we're used to hearing music with this smaller number of pitches.