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The Diatonic Scale and the Meaning of "Diatonic"
So, the chromatic scale does sound chaotic—not naturally musical. However, you can grab notes from the chromatic scale to craft numerous naturally musical scales. These agreeable-sounding scales contain only eight or fewer notes, selected from the chromatic scale. Chapter 5 discusses some of them.
For now, though, a bit more about the “do-re-mi” scale.
Its common name is the major scale. It consists of eight notes, spaced by seven intervals of tones and semitones in this order:
tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone
This type of scale is called a diatonic scale. “Dia” comes from the Greek word for “through” or “by.” And “tonic” refers to the tonal anchor of the scale—the first note of the scale—called the tonic note. So a “diatonic” scale’s notes are related to each other “through” or "by" the first, or “tonic” note of the scale.
More on this in Chapter 5, which discusses tonal music in detail.