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February 21

Rules for how to name black keys in music

Good music theorists follow the "make sure you don't substitute enharmonic equivalents" when spelling a diatonic scale. Each letter name must be used once. That is, a D scale must use the notes D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D (with an appropriate accidental attached to any number of the letter names.)

However, some people recently are preferring a different rule: this is "always write black keys as sharps; never use flats". Any reason this rule is used by some people?? Georgia guy (talk) 00:06, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The only reason I can think of is that if you're playing a scale, you start on the tonic and proceed in a northerly direction up the keyboard, so it kinda sorta makes sense to have D-E-F♯-G-A-B-C♯-D, rather than D-E-G♭-A-B-D♭-D, because F♯ is arrived at logically by moving upwards from E to F, and again upwards from F to F♯. To use flats would require moving logically from E upwards to G, then downwards to G♭. Easily done, but for learners it might seem counter-intuitive given that the actual notes played are all higher than the previous ones.

This is all fine in the context of a scale that is played once, in an ascending direction only. But it breaks down when you get into ascending followed by descending scales. And as for key signatures, forget it.

But this applies only to scales that have sharps in their key signatures: (major) G, D, A, E, B, F♯, C♯; (minor) E, B, F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯. When it comes to keys with flats in their key signatures, it makes zero sense to write their scales with sharps. E♭ major is E♭,F, G, A♭, B♭, C, D, E♭, NOT D♯, F, G, G♯, A♯, C, D, D♯.

-- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:37, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, who are those "some people" and what's their "recent" activity? Is "some people" = "people who don't know music", by any chance? Before you expect an answer here, please provide refs that actual, competent musicians are doing this. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:03, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Do a Google search on "F, G, A, A" and look to see if any of these will talk about the F major scale using A sharp. Georgia guy (talk) 11:21, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why would I want to do a Google search on this? You made that claim, so you provide the links. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:25, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an example: https://chord.rocks/5-string-bass-guitar/scales/f-major Georgia guy (talk) 12:22, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Home-made guitar-note finder apps may or may not be programmed to follow the standard conventions of western notation. --Jayron 32 14:53, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've not heard the rule about avoiding flats; for example the C minor scale is written C, D, E♭, F, G, A♭, B♭. The sharps don't work here, because then you'd have D and D#, but no E, you'd have a G, G# and an A#, but no B. Similarly, the F major scale is written F, G, A, B♭, C, D, E. I don't know how you write that without a B♭. You write whatever sharps or flats are needed to make the scale work and give you exactly one of each letter. There are always seven diatonic notes in any standard major or minor scale or mode of the major scale, and these 7 notes are always given the letters ABCDEFG exactly once, with sharps and flats assigned to make that work out. You can play other notes over such a key, but those are always considered chromatic notes (i.e. "accidentals"). This is expressly for making the reading of sheet music easier; if you double a letter, then you need to make a line/space on the music staff do double duty. If you make sure to use each letter exactly once, you efficiently use the space on your staff. (In this description, I'm not including other scales that aren't based on the 7-note model, such as pentatonic scales, which are of course missing letters, or some of the blues scales which include multiple versions of the same letter. Blues music does not really have a sheet music tradition, which is why they developed different conventions.) --Jayron 32 14:43, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think the reason might just depend on what the key signature uses. If the key signature uses sharps, then usually sharps will be used (so A#, B# (C natural), C#, etc). If the key signature uses flats flats will be used (Ab, Bb, Cb (B natural), etc). However i Have seen some pieces use both. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 02:22, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A key signature will usually only use all sharps or all flats, but there may be Accidentals that use either in the same piece. --Jayron 32 12:09, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I know. It's just common that if the key signature uses sharps, then the accidentals will be sharps, and vice versa. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 13:53, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me. I understand these comments, but what I'm saying is that these days SOME people use the rule that we ALWAYS notate black keys as sharps, regardless of logic. This means that to them, a major scale can have 2 notes with the same letter name that differ in that one has a sharp sign, and it likewise can have no note with a letter name. To them, the scale is D♯-F-G-G♯-A♯-C-D-D♯. I want to know why this point of view is used sometimes. Georgia guy (talk) 14:36, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of that rule. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:40, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This rule is followed by a web site called "Ultimate Guitar". Georgia guy (talk) 14:52, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's not any sort of rule. In fact, Ultimate Guitar even gives you the option to display the Sharps as flats. How do I know? I've used the website before. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:55, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Look here at another web site: https://www.scales-chords.com/scaleinfo.php?skey=F&sname=major Georgia guy (talk) 14:56, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. But do you know where it actually states that's a rule and not just a personal preference? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 14:59, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Even if it's just a personal preference, why do people have it?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:00, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why not? It's not a bad thing. Just wait until you start seeing double sharps and double flats. Or Cb and B# and Fb and E# ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:11, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't follow the rules of standard music theory. We all learn it's important to realize that enharmonic notes are not interchangeable in music theory despite having the same key on a piano keyboard. Georgia guy (talk) 15:15, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

..... You're gonna have to show me something that says that. Because I have never heard that enharmonic notes are not interchangeable. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:20, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

D-A♯ is an augmented 5th. D-B♭ is a minor 6th. Georgia guy (talk) 15:32, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wh- huh? How on earth does that make any sense when they are the same exact note? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:33, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on the interval function in the music you are using. Enharmonic notes have the same pitch (in equal temperament; in other tuning systems they may not!) but they will be labeled differently (i.e. as either A♯ or B♭) depending on how the note functions within a key, a chord, a scale, or an interval. --Jayron 32 16:26, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Partially repeating some of the responses above: (1) The black keys of a key instrument such as a piano are not notes. They are keys that are used to produce notes. (2) These keys as such have no names by themselves but may be designated by the name of the note they produce. (3) In Western music, the scale of F major goes F–G–A–B♭–C–D–E–F. No professional musician will name these notes differently. (4) Likewise, the scale of B major goes like B–C♯–D♯–E–F♯–G♯–A♯–B. Note that each has a different letter until we reach the octave. (5) When you play these scales on a piano, the key used to play A♯, a black key, is the same as was used to play B♭. While different notes, they share a key. (6) Until the invention of equal temperament, this was an issue. After playing a composition in F major, a clavichord or whatever key instrument was used had to be retuned for playing a composition in B major, otherwise the A♯ notes would sound off. On a well-tempered keyboard instrument, both A♯ and B♭ are a bit off (in different directions), but so little that we got used to accepting it. (7) Nevertheless, they remain different notes. Using the name A♯ for the B♭ note goes against the logic of the Western musical scales. --Lambiam 16:45, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry but your logic makes no sense. You say this, "On a well-tempered keyboard instrument, both A♯ and B♭ are a bit off" however this is impossible since the same key is used to play both those notes. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 16:52, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You build scales, chords, and keys using intervals. Let's take that B♭ in the F major scale. That note is a perfect fourth interval above the root (F). That means that in just intonation it should be a frequence at a 4:3 ratio over the root. Now, lets look at the B major scale which has an A♯ at the major seventh interval. In just intonation, that is a 15:8 ratio over the root. It turns out that those two notes will not be the same frequency exactly. They will be off from each other by a few percent. With some instruments (like voice or violin) where there is complete freedom to pick a note by ear, this isn't much of a problem, but for many instruments (like guitar or piano) where notes have to be a fixed location, this creates an issue. So we tune our pianos and guitars using what is called a "temperament system", basically picking a value for A♯/B♭ which is somewhat between the two values, so that it's not exactly correct in either key, but it is close to both of them. Modern instruments are almost always tuned to 12 tone equal temperament. --Jayron 32 17:16, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Forget it. None of this makes any sense whatsoever. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 17:19, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This video from the music theory YouTube channel "12Tone" does a better job explaining 12 TET than I did. There are probably other videos out there that explain it well too. If you want some good music theory channels, besides 12Tone, check out "David Bennett Piano", "Adam Neely", "Charles Cornell", all of which are really good to help you learn the basics of music theory. --Jayron 32 17:23, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See also our articles on Just intonation and the resulting problematic Wolf interval. --Lambiam 17:30, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't use part of my signature for that again. I understand you were trying to make a joke but it seems like you're making fun of me for not understanding― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 17:33, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An easier way to explain it is this: the musical scale was not invented to describe the notes of the piano. The piano was invented to play music. When I sing, I can sing literally any frequency in my range. My voice can vary in pitch continuously through a whole range of frequencies. However, we have found that singing certain frequencies together (either next to each other in a melody, or at the same time in harmony) sounds good. Those frequency relationships that sound good together are called intervals, and in our music system, there are 12 of them: minor second, major second, minor third, major third, perfect fourth, tritone, perfect fifth, minor sixth, major sixth, minor seventh, major seventh, and octave. We built chords, melodies, scales, and keys by picking specific notes from that list of 12. Now, notice I haven't given those notes any names, or defined any specific frequencies (pitches) yet. Just explained the system. If we're just singing together, I can pick any note I want as my root note, and then we can build melodies and harmonies around that by listening to each other and singing the correct notes (ear training involves the ability of musicians to pick out intervals by listening to them played together). We don't need letters or keys on a piano, or anything. Just listening and singing.
The problem comes when I need to assign these notes to certain musical instruments that have fixed keys or frets. Now, I can't start playing at any note I want, I'm confined to whatever that string is tuned to. We need a standardized system so that all the notes sound good together. There are different systems, each of which have their own problems. Our choices fall into two categories: just intonation and equal temperament. A "just intonation" system makes the entire instrument sound perfect when tuned to a single root note. The instrument sounds great, but ONLY in one key. In all of the other keys, they notes sound a bit off. Like it's out of tune in every other key except the one you tuned your instrument to. In equal temperament, we take all of the 12 musical keys and "average them out" a little bit, so every note is just a little bit out of tune, but now they are all out of tune by the same amount so that we don't have to retune our instrument just to change keys.
The other thing we seem to be having trouble with is explaining enharmonic notes, which are notes that have the same frequency, but us different letters in different keys. That's easy enough to explain. You build a scale or a chord based on intervals first, and then name the notes based on the interval spacing. The intervals come first, then we follow the "standard convention" of using each of the seven letters once for each interval. For historical reasons we don't need to get into here, the "unadorned" scale is the C major scale, C D E F G A B, which is built on the intervals of the major scale. If we build another scale or mode, like D minor or C Mixolydian or whatever, then we find that we need to choose notes that are either a semitone higher or lower than they would lie on the C scale. If they are a semitone lower, we call that a "flat" and if they are a semitone higher, we call that a "sharp". That's it. In order to make music readable on musical staves (i.e. sheet music) we developed conventions that mean we should only use letters once, we should use all sharps or all flats, etc. etc. These rules or conventions were invented to make reading sheet music easier. If you want to call the fourth degree of the F major scale "A#", you're not wrong, in the sense that you'll still hit the same key on the piano, except there won't be any "#" symbol on the sheet music. It will be notated as a B-flat. "But what about this website I found that calls it an A#?" I don't know, ask them. That's not how it's done in traditional sheet music. --Jayron 32 18:48, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a concrete example of how a given note does not necessarily always have the exact same frequency. It depends on how the notes are tuned. Using just tuning, a perfect fourth (IV) corresponds to the ratio ${\tfrac {4}{3}},$ a perfect fifth (V) to ${\tfrac {3}{2}},$ and a major sixth (VI) to ${\tfrac {5}{3}}.$ Now there are (at least) two ways to tune the ninth (IX) from a given, already tuned note, say C. So we need to tune the D one octave up. We can use V + V = IX, which gives a ratio ${\tfrac {3}{2}}\times {\tfrac {3}{2}}={\tfrac {9}{4}}=2.25,$ the Pythagorean tuning. We can, however, choose to use VI + IV = IX, which may make more sense in the context of some scale (such as A major), but which results in ${\tfrac {5}{3}}\times {\tfrac {4}{3}}={\tfrac {20}{9}}=2.22222...,$ considerably different. The equitempered middle road is to use $2^{14/12}=2.24492...,$ neatly in between. --Lambiam 13:57, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Georgia guy, guitar players frequently don't approach music notation in the same way as many other musicians. They often won't learn how to read sheet music or study much music theory. Since the sites you're mentioning are ultimate-guitar.com and chord.rocks, both intended for amateur guitar players, I wouldn't advise reading too much into it. As far as I know, there's no debate among people with rudimentary music theory knowledge or classical training in a non-guitar instrument. Firefangledfeathers 14:11, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Although.. a schoolmate of mine advised me I was to study bass guitar if I was interested in the contemporary musical trend once. I might have complied, but I did not. After a long while I was rewarded with what I wanted, an opinion about why the electric guitar was to impose itself face to synthesizer organs in the 1970's (Frankenstein). That is that because steel stringed amplified guitar players demonstrate where to is, ( or are ) speedy escapes from that well tempered, sure but also rather artificial approximation. How that, it's about what's leading you there: heroical pose, placid play on string bending making listeners fret about finally getting with at coordinated microtonality. --Askedonty (talk) 16:04, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Electric guitar players of the 1970s were hardly the first to use microtonal note bending to achieve their musical sound. Such Blue notes had been part of the standard jazz and blues repertoire since before Edgar Winter was born. Incidentally, the lead lines in Frankenstein are played on on an ARP 2600, which is a type of analogue synthesizer; but is capable of bending notes quite well using various knobs. There is a guitarist on the song (Ronnie Montrose on the studio version, Rick Derringer on many of the live performances you can find on YouTube), but they play mostly rhythm parts. One particularly well-known live version, where you can see how Winter achieves much of his tones and melodies quite well, is from the Old Grey Whistle Test and can be found on YouTube fairly easily (not linking due to copyright issues). --Jayron 32 16:30, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Double-sharps don't usually require microtonal intervals. However, half-sharps do. See, for example, neutral third, which is a interval partway between a minor third and a major third. In the key of C, such a note would be an E half-sharp. --Jayron 32 18:15, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharps are usually used when the note is already sharped in the key signature (it would equate to 1 whole step, or to the next black key). ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 18:20, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Some keys on the circle of fifths actually need double sharps, see G-sharp major. It is usually written as A-flat major because that avoids double sharps; the F-double-sharp note in G-sharp major (i.e. the major seventh interval) is enharmonically equivalent to G-natural. --Jayron 32 19:32, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and my response above appears out of context because the edit I was responding to is here. It was rightly removed per WP:DNFT, but if someone wants to see why I suddenly brought up double sharps, I didn't. I was responding to a comment that did, and seemed to confuse them with microtonal/quartertone notes. --Jayron 32 19:34, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I knew there were sharp equivalents to flat keys! I myself often get confused by double sharps because I have to think "is it a double sharp in relation to the natural of the note or the sharp of the note" and I can never remember which it is. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 19:46, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The OP asked about the statement "Always write black keys as sharps; never use flats". Any reason this rule is used by some people?? Yes. The reason is that they are musical ignoramuses. According to this insane idea, the scale of 'C major' should be written B#, C##, D##, E#, F##, G##, A##, B#. MinorProphet (talk) 20:58, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, no. Those are all white keys. The OP's question was about specifying black keys as sharps. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:23, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid you overlooked the visual accompaniment. --Lambiam 00:47, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid that keyboard is a satanic perversion of everything I hold most sacred. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:39, 24 February 2022 (UTC) [reply]

How to sharpen

I was hoping to post a pic of the quarter-tone grand piano made in c.1924 by Grotrian-Steinweg, perhaps either for the microtonal composers Ivan Wyschnegradsky or Hans Barth (no article). Piano, An Encyclopedia (not sure if this is allowed) says this on p. 127: "Grotrian-Steinweg also made a "double grand", this with black, white and brown keys and 20 notes to the octave." See also Enharmonic keyboard. I recall seeing a photo many years ago, perhaps in the Oxford Companion to Music ed. by Percy Scholes?, but all I could find was this link, which shows something other than what I remembered. Definitely not this monster. Or there's always this cheat by Charles Ives with two pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart. MinorProphet (talk) 04:16, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As frets are easier to work with than creating whole new strings and keys and the like, microtonal guitars are more common (not like "walk into Guitar Center and pull one off the shelf" common, but still moreso than microtonal pianos.) See here. Also, digital keyboards are often quite capable of microtonal and non-standard tuning, but are still confined to the standard layout. --Jayron 32 13:21, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jayron32: THere aren't just microtonal guitars but fretless guitars which can play infinitely many more notes. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 13:22, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Bumblefoot's signature guitar is a twin neck with the top neck as fretless. Gabriel Akhmad Marin uses a similar guitar as well. --Jayron 32 13:26, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Referring to the discussion above: Nobody mentioned the Comma (music), which I first encountered as the Pythagorean comma - the difference between five octaves, where each octave is a doubling of frequency, and 12 fifth (where a perfect fifth has a ratio of 3:2). Equal temperament is the attempt to split the difference over the discrete keys of a piano (or similar discrete instrument). When I was first explained this by a professional musician, I was deeply hurt by the way the world does not perfectly correspond to mathematical beauty... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:21, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Or is it a failure of mathematics, in particular its logarithm function, in not producing a mathematical beaut of a perfectly rational value for

\log _{2}3\approx 1{\tfrac {7}{12}}

? --Lambiam 16:33, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What article lists "sacred cow" political issues around the world?

I remember reading an article which listed examples of political issues in democracies around the world which enjoy near-universal support in that country. For example, the article stated that in Canada, universal healthcare enjoys an almost unquestionable status, such that no political candidate would ever campaign on eliminating it. I think the article might also talk about how in the United States, support for Israel also enjoys a similarly universal status. What was that article? 2001:569:7FC7:6B00:4CFB:E701:F781:CA2 (talk) 13:24, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, I found it: Third rail (politics). 2001:569:7FC7:6B00:4CFB:E701:F781:CA2 (talk) 13:54, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]