txtDefinition=A seven-{\uldb note}{\v 89586} {\uldb scale}{\v 94733} whose origins extend back to the ancient Greeks. The {\uldb major}{\v 86320} (heard in the first example below) and {\uldb minor}{\v 88035} forms of the diatonic scale formed the {\uldb harmonic}{\v 84040} and {\uldb melodic}{\v 86956} basis of Western music from the seventeenth through the early twentieth centuries.