The chromatic scale is when you play all 12 semitones. You're thinking of a C major scale. The wiki article gives the following etymology: > The word chromati

The chromatic scale is when you play all 12 semitones. You're thinking of a C major scale. The wiki article gives the following etymology: > The word chromatic comes from the Greek chroma, color; and the traditional function of the chromatic scale is to color or embellish the tones of the major and minor scales. But this feels a bit weak to me. Would be nice to have a more authoritative source.