Hi,
When a flat or sharp is the key of a scale, are all notes sharps or flats as corresponds? The reason I ask is that from what I know, A# and D# are commonly replaced by Bb and Eb. However, in an Ab scale I'm looking at, Fb and Cb (which I assume are behave like A# and D#) seem to be skipped rather than replaced. Is that the case? Also, why are these notes not used?
Hope this makes sense.
Kind of confusing there...
Notes don't get replace by others, they're enharmonic - every tone has more than one name (Bb is A#... and also Cbb)
A sound (tone) is always the same. The way we write sounds (notes) get arranged to make music easy to read.
The basic rule in a scale is that every letter gets used, and used only once. So if you start from A:
A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A
and you want to make that a major scale, you need to adjust those letters up or down to fit the major scale pattern:
A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A
If your first note is Ab, they get adjusted:
Ab-Bb-C-Db-Eb-F-G-Ab
So in the key of Ab, C and F DO get 'skipped' (and so does G).
Every note gets used, but only once. If you use F, you don't use F#... if you use Bb, you don't use B. If you did, you'd have one line or space in standard notation with no notes, and another line or space that would be full of accidentals - you'd need to write out for each note whether it was sharp, flat, or natural.
Make sense?
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
Thanks for responding.
It does make sense (kind of). So, a scale will never have a natural note next to its sharp/flat?
You mentioned Fb and Cb. No they would not be the same as D# and A#.
They would be E and B respectively.
Study the circle of 5ths.
That will show how different keys relate to each other. also what notes are sharp or flat depending on what key your playing.
No there will not be flats and sharps both appearing in the same key unless a note is specifically marked as such and then it will only hold true for that bar only. (these marked notes are called accidentals)
I am feeling a bit talkative so I figured I would try to explain why Fb,Cb, B# or E# would be used in music.
Lets say you are writing a song in the key of F, ok? That means all Bs are flat.
Now you get to a bar and you want a certain sound. You want all 16th notes. They are all Bs but you want every other one played natural.
With me so far?
Well you could mark the second one natural, but wait a minute. After using an accidental the rest of the same note in that bar follow the rule of that accidental. SO you now have to mark the 3rd one flat, 4th one natural, 5th one flat ect....
There is an easier way. make every other note an C and mark the first one flat. Of course the rest of the Cs in that bar would follow that rule and you end up with what you wanted to start out with.
As you can see one accidental is much easier to do than 15 and you get the same result.
Thanks for the help.
