Circle of fifths, enharmonics?

Well, there ARE theoretical reasons in traditional music theory – accidentals in chromatic scales reflect keys that are relative to a given scale. But I guess it’s better not to complicate things and go into details here.

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If you look at the solfege wiki, there are multiple lists of different names, some of them don’t have words for A flat for example.

The chromatic scale is useful to me due to the guitar, each string is the exact same scale/key pattern just moved up a perfect 4th.

Please Alex, go into detail if you can be assed lol Helps me learn a bit :slightly_smiling_face:

Hey, I’ve a question – is English your native language?

Yes, have I missed spelled things? :rofl:

No, it’s just sometimes a bit difficult for me to understand your messages. Nevermind, must be my lack of language experience.

As for chromatic scales – for instance, in the scale of chromatic C major traditional music theory interpets altered notes as leading tones to tonics of relative keys. That’s why there’s no A# in ascending chromatic C major – because A# would be the leading tone to tonic of B major, which isn’t relative to C major. They take Bb instead – I guess it is viewed as a leading tone to 3rd degree of F major, which is relative to C major. I’ve never quite grasped why, in descending order, they flatten all the degrees EXCEPT the 5th one though.

Again, I think it is not necessary for you to think about such things at this point. I have the impression that you should study the very basics first. Like if someone asks you – how many sharps are there in F# major? – and you should have the answer instantly.

I do because I memorized the circle of fifths, there are 6.

If you were to say the chromatic scale, what would you say?

I’d say: AA# B CC# DD# E FF# GG# Would this be correct?
For descending I’m a bit confused. If I say Gb G Fb F… That’s not right is it? As Gb is F#.

I apologise for my poor messages, It must be my accent :stuck_out_tongue:

Well, it was oversimplified explanation. Because in other case I had to explain 1st degree relativiy ( which is actually difficult since, first - I’m not good with english terms, second - they may use another system of relations, not Rimsky-Korsakovs)

Anyway, since dodecaphonic music appearance strict major-minor point of view on chromatic scale is a bit outdated.

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For the first time one of the most confusing things when chatting with english speaking musicians was relative vs parallel tonality conception since they called it vice versa.
Oh, and the lack of звукоряд, лад, гамма, ладовая система terms which all named ‘scale’. So it’s a bit confusing to explan why while playing melodic minor scale you use melodic minor in ascending motion and natural minor in descending. It’s like the scale consists of itself and another scale. Nice trick for the math set theory but not so good for musicians.

If I’m going down the chromatic scale from G# Should I include the A octave?
Should it be: Ab G Gb F…?

The easiest approach is to use sharps only or flats only. Easy to remember, hard to make a mistake.
If you’re going to use oldschool theoretic approach (which is overthinking I suppose) then it depends on what base scale are you going to use. If you work in G#-major context, than you have:
G# Fx F# E# E D# Cx C# B# B A# A G#

Dear Cracking the Code Forum,

I noticed a button on my computer that looks like this:

And I’m going to try pushing it and seeing what happens:

There are many tangential and interesting topics related to solfege, note names, and music history.

But I think @RockStarJazzCat 's question gets to the most important thing relative to the original post and the original poster.

@WhammyStarScream - What is that you are trying to achieve or accomplish, specifically? There are many different ways to use note names, solfege, etc, and if a student came to me with these questions I’d feel I wouldn’t really be able to provide them with the right guidance if I didn’t know what the knowledge was supposed to be for.

For some musical goals, knowing all of this stuff is irrelevant.

For some musical goals, one way is more probably more efficient than another way.

For some musical goals, there are elements of these topics that are extremely important and elements that are not.

It’s very easy to get lost in distinctions that are not relevant to the specific goal, even if they may be interesting.

And better/worse useful/useless is very relative to goals as well! I’ve found in music and musical practice it’s extremely difficult to say whether one thing is better than another thing if we don’t know more information about what is trying to be achieved.

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Usually they consider these chromatic notes as a 7th of a dimished leading tone 7th chord (ум.вводный). So flatten V should be a seventh of VI dim7. And thats the problem since VIdim7 leads to a VII triad (and VII has no maj/min triad, or we could say that it’s not a 1st degree relative). So they sharpen IV instead. Smthng like that

The circle of fifths has enharmonics, So does the chromatic scale and the various other key scales. Right?

So whats the rule that governs this? When I do the chromatic scale from a to g, and the reverse, g to a, what rule should I applies to the naming of the enharmonics?

I’m trying to understand music theory better :slightly_smiling_face:

It’s an interesting subject for sure, but when you get into things like whether X is better than Y, there has to be an end goal that’s a lot more specific in order to be able to really discuss it.

“music theory” is very, very broad!

The specific thing that jumped out to me is when you mentioned your reaction to solfege - solfege can serve a very specific purpose and do so extremely well, so whether it’s useful for you to sing note names vs sing solfege (or both, or which and when) depends largely on what you’re trying to accomplish - specifically.

Honestly it’s a sore spot for myself and decades of history on music theory/guitar forums - discussions can go round and round but be missing the mark because parameters, intention, and goals aren’t clearly defined.

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I’d suggest to forget about chromatic scale for a time. First of all, it’s not considered as a normal regular scale (unless you write serial music etc). It’s more a bunch of accidentals around diatonic notes of a usual major/minor.
Second, enharmonic in circle of fifth is related to major/minor approach. Chromatic scale accidentals is a whole different story.
Don’t get ahead of yourself. Start with regular major/minor so you could understand when it’s A# and when it’s Bb, when it’s an augmented 4th and when it’s a diminished 5th.

Simply to memorize the notes and start to see the naming convention logic. Learning solfege is pointless if I can just use the note names, I’m a guitar player over a singer, and very few people know solfege, but they do know, notes. It’s more efficient if I just memorise notes. Life is short.

How would you spell out the chromatic scale in reverse order? From G to A? I’d appreciate it if you could teach me :grin:

I will take your advice. Tho I need the chromatic scale to fully know the guitar neck, and knowing it correctly surly will help in my learning of the various combinations of it.

Meaning no disrespect, I think you’re making that distinction without a more thorough understanding of A. what might be involved in what you’re trying to accomplish and B. what the purpose of solfege actually is. My point is definitely not that you have to learn solfege, but just that the conversation is more productive if we get more specific.

For example - you want to know note names and know the conventional logic for note names. For what purpose? What will you use it for?

Adding, just as a general bit of unsolicited advice, and again meaning no disrespect, but if you’re trying to wrap your head around some fundamentals, I would be very careful before jumping to absolute conclusions about anything with music theory such as “solfege is pointless” or “I’m not a singer so i don’t need to know it” or “solfege isn’t useful because more people know note names.” Those statements show me you’re making a lot of assumptions about what the purpose of solfege is. I promise you - with absolute certainty, you’ll go farther being open minded, especially since you’re more so in the beginning of this “journey” and the more you learn the more you’ll realize there is to know. Similarly, you’ll get more people who want to get on your side and help you, rather than argue with you.

But again, my point is NOT that you have to learn solfege! More so just points about music ed/development in general.

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What pieces do you play? I think that playing actual pieces reading sheet music (rather than exercises of all sorts) really improves knowledge of the neck, among many other things. I guess that’s what @JakeEstner means when he says that you need a goal.

@Alexander sort of - I mean, there are a lot of reasons somebody might want to get better with note names

  • sight reading new pieces
  • communicating more clearly with a band/other musicians
  • getting an understanding of things with the intention of improving improvisation and being able to improvise more complex/interesting music
  • a feeling of just wanting to understand notes and music better, but not sure of anything beyond that

just as examples

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