Music Theory 2
Hello David,
I hope everything is fine. I was doing example 1.1 of Music Theory 2 and while I was doing the F# scale in 7th position I did not know what to write down next. From 6th positon to 7th is 1 tone so it had to move from D# to E#, but as far as I remembered from E to F is half a tone so it had to skip to F directly,and after from F to F#. I checked the solution and the gap was filled with E# but I did not get it since E# does not exist in the piano scale. Why is that so?
Thank you.
Hello Joak.
When we're in a key, there can only be one note per alphabet. If we go F# G# A# B C# D# F F# our reading minds will see the scale degrees as 1 2 3 4 5 6 flat-1 1. The letter name F is only for the 1, the root of the key. If we see F-flat, F-natural, or F-sharp... they're all relative to the root note. When we spell chords, it's the same thing. Chords are build in thirds. For example 1 3 5 would be F# A# C# in this key. If we use the first spelling example I gave above, then seventh chord would be F G# B. Though technically it will give us the correct notes... the fact that the F and G# are adjacent letters of the alphabet makes us think it's flat-1 2 4 instead of the 1 3 5 starting on the 7th degree of the scale.
So... simply put, for diatonic scales, we must use one letter of the alphabet for the scale at a time, otherwise it messes with where we are in the scale/chord structure of a key.
With this said, playing an instrument, like sax for example, if you see E#, you key what you know as F on the instrument, so there is some translating that needs to be done, but that's how it works.
Thank you so much! Now I understand it.
Joak:
David will give you an excellent, concise and intelligible explanation from the harp player's perspective, but in the meantime you're right. F and "E#" are the same note. Just as B and Cb are the same note. It's a tired joke on the bandstand that sometimes while the other musicians are sharing instructions, the drummer will yell, "Wait ... should I tune these to E sharp??"
That said, once in a while in a classical music orchestral or choral score you'll see an F natural noted as an E#, or a B natural as a Cb, usuallly for notation consistancy where an accidental is being played or sung in a key with lots of sharps or flats. I've been in choral rehearsals where when it appears, someone will inevitably make the same sort of joke, as though they were a blues drummer!