Theory & Impro Theory - E Sharp - F Natural - What the.... ?!?!?!

[kevgermany]

🙂))

 

[Gungehead]

Brilliant, Mike, but I can't help thinking you have too much time on your hands
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[Mikec]

Brilliant, Mike, but I can't help thinking you have too much time on your hands
;}

While I'm at work, 90% of my mind is free; all sorts of things float into it...

How's the rowing? Started this year?

 

[RSPINDY]

Once you start learning theory of harmony, then the E# etc start to make sense.

When learning chords and intervals, you need to know which degree of a scale any chord note is relative to the root and to each other. To do this we count in numbers, so:

C D E F G A B =
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 based on C.

The notes of a basic chord (triad) are 1 3 and 5

In every key you just learn the numbers, so each note has a number relative to the root. This way you know quickly that the F triad is F A C because you count:

F G A Bb C D E
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

So each letter of the alphabet has its own number.

Now when you get to C#, it's actually easier to know that the 3rd is E# rather than F:

C# D# E# F# G# A# B#
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

It's actually less confusing not to have F and F#

Also when writing keysigs on a staff, as has been pointed outed out, as you go round the cycle of 5ths, you add a # to the key sig. In C#, because we have an E# there is no need to make spme of the fs F# and some F natural. So it is actually clearer and more logical in the end.

==================
I know that this is an old thread, but, I needed to get my 2 cents in.

Pete Thomas actually hit half of the nail on the head -- The Idea of parallelism. In the key of G we call the 7th step F#, not Gb because it becomes "parallel" to other Keys. The C major scale uses one and only one of each letter of the musical alphabet. If we take that around all of the possible keys, we can start figuring any major scale, real or imagined by simply first writing the alphabet and then applying the appropriate sharps or flats to make it fit into the mode.

Other people who have blamed Herr Bach and Equal Temperament (which is not the same as "Well-Tempered") for the problem are incorrect. The problem lies in the very beginning of our notation system which began in, I believe, around 1200. At this time, there was no concept of a tuning standard such as A = 440 and intonation systems (temperament) were localized (make the 3rds or 5ths sound good). Even the concept of Key was not involved. Only "B" needed to be altered to avoid the the tritone (diabolus de musica) which everyone proceeded to alter to create the tritone because it had such musical significance.

Anyway, They developed this ladder like graph that we call a staff. It was designed to simply (and I will use the English Naming, but you can translate to Do Re Mi or Ut or use "H" at will) that simply showed the steps of the DIATONIC SCALE. It showed where A B C D E F G A was in any given piece of music.[An Aside -- the staff was created more for political and religious control, i.e. to transfer the prescribed versions of chant, than anything else].

Well, this staff is already asymmetrical. Depending on the clef (the indication of a particular note -- I will use G clef or treble clef) there were two sizes of intervals indicated. In G clef, the first line to the first space is a half-step while the first space to the second line is a whole-step! Yet it looks the same on the staff.

This was fine as long as you were only dealing in modal systems that was about the placement of half-steps and you sang in whatever pitch was convenient. The idea of going from one key to another wasn't even thought of.

But, alas, we discovered a system that would allow us to create music and prove "Tonic" by exploring every major and minor scale. Yet, the diatonically, non-transpositional centered staff was established as the means to transmit music (piano rolls had to wait until the piano was invented, let alone sound recording.) So the system of notation was modified as much as possible to accomodate new musical ideas. But even here, we pre-date Herr Bach by about 85 years (and that was his birth, he didn't compose anything at least for 7 days.)

For better or worse, no one has come up with a system, that can be universally acceptable, to adequately notate 12 tone/chromatic music (let alone micro-tonal systems) so we live with the quirks of the system and accept "E#" as indicating the leading tone to the key of "F#".

 

[Richard Perks]

Ouch!!!