tetratonic

English

Adjective

tetratonic (not comparable)

1. (music) Made of four different musical notes.
   • 1976, Bruno Nettl, Helen Myers, Folk Music in the United States, page 38:

     The two Creek Indian "Duck Dance Songs" from the north- eastern United States illustrate the use of a tetratonic scale, A, C, D, E ( Example 5a ), and a pentatonic scale, A, C, D, E, G ( Example 5b ).

   • 1994, János Kárpáti, Bartók's Chamber Music, page 111:

     Pentatony can also come about through the simple complement and melodic development of the tetratonic melodic nucleus.

   • 2015, Andy McWain, Jazz Practice Ideas with Your Real Book:

     This four-note pattern is called a tetratonic, or also sometimes referred to as a melodic structures (by saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi, and others). […] This is powerful because applying this tetratonic formula R235 or R345, you have something that works(!) to play on every chord change and on every beat.

2. (music) Pertaining to or using a tetratonic scale.
   • 1974, I. E. N. Chauhan, Ethnomusicology-tribal Music: The Music of Kinnaur, page 20:

     Of course such tetratonic music is capable of powerful expression in its own particular mood but there has apparently been no attempt to evolve form as such.

   • 2006, David D. Harnish, Bridges to the Ancestors: Music, Myth, And Cultural Politics, page 232:

     Beyond these areas Sasak music largely diverges from pélog and slendro tonality, and there are a number of tetratonic forms — in compositions for gamelan beleq and kamput, for example.

   • 2020, Zhengbing Hu, Sergey Petoukhov, Matthew He, Advances in Artificial Systems for Medicine and Education III, page 197:

     Tetratonic music was noted as common in Polynesia and Melanesia.

3. (biochemistry, rare) Made of four amino acids.
   • 1974, Nuclear Science Abstracts - Volume 30, Part 5, page 139:

     PHOSPORUS/ELECTRON-MOLECULE COLLISIONS: High temperature negative ions, Electron impact study of tetratonic phosphorus vapor

   • 2009, G. E. W. Wolstenholme, David W. FitzSimons, Julie Whelan, Submolecular Biology and Cancer, page 179:

     This tetratonic polymer proved to be more active than any of the tritonic polymers, showing the maximal inhibition recordable under standard test conditions.

Translations

Translations

• Spanish: tetratónico