Tetrad (music)
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A tetrad is a set of four notes in music theory. When these four notes form a tertian chord they are more specifically called a seventh chord, after the diatonic interval from the root of the chord to its fourth note (in root position close voicing). Four-note chords are often formed of intervals other than thirds in 20th- and 21st-century music, however, where they are more generally referred to as tetrads.[1] Musicologist Allen Forte in his The Structure of Atonal Music never uses the term "tetrad", but occasionally employs the word tetrachord to mean any collection of four pitch classes.[2] In 20th-century music theory, such sets of four pitch classes are usually called "tetrachords".[3][4]
