It’s a bit off topic for me to get into the benefits of solfege, but those other threads get into them. Solfege may or may not be relevant to the discussion - I was only commenting on your reaction to it.
I wrote before, ‘music theory’ is very broad. What do you want to do with it? What is the end goal?
Regarding the spelling of the chromatic scale, it’s not consequential and as far as I know doesn’t have any significance. For ease of writing and reading I would use sharps ascending and flats descending.
Chord progressions, scale construction, chord construction. The construction of music. I’m not to bothered about sight reading atm, rather don’t have the time.
I’m up for it all. I like all music if it’s well made, I’m not really looking at stopping, it’s an on going thing. I’ve no formal music education it’s all sporadic picking up things over the years with a greater push recently.
Don’t bother worrying about the correct way to spell the chromatic scale, per se.
With all of this stuff, make sure you start here:
Be reasonably comfortable with note names on the guitar. You don’t have to be a total whiz and it will improve over time.
Make sure you know the common spellings of
all 12 major scales/keys
all 12 minor keys scales
That is, you can, even if slowly, rattle off the names of the notes in each of those scales with the correct #/b.
Make sure you can spell all possible triads for all roots - major, minor, diminished, and augmented.
Then there’s tons and tons and tons of more stuff to spell and know from there, but along the lines of this topic, definitely start there. Write it all out for yourself even though you can easily just copy it from any website - the act of trying to figure it out will be very valuable, and you’ll have these reference sheets for yourself.
Solfege will be immensely valuable to you, but for reasons somewhat separate from this thread. Movable-do Solfege is not a substitute for note names or knowing note names, it’s a method of associating the sounds of degrees of the scale with certain syllables. We could start a seperate thread possibly called “to solfege or not to solfege” where I and others could get more specific. For now I would say, definitely learn it and definitely learn to sing short melodies, scale patterns, arpeggios, etc, in it.
You say you want to understand music theory better. You seem to have it in your head, that it is a good approach to do that with the chromatic scale as a basis. I’m not criticizing you for that, that is your choice. As various people have pointed out, it might be much more helpful to understand diatonic music first - music that is based on seven-note-scales. That is what all solmisation-systems like solfege are based on. Indian music theory knows at least 22 distinct pitches within the octave, and still sa-rhe-gha-ma-pa-dha-ni suffice as basic musical language. If i hear “sa” (or “do”) i know this is the root, if i hear “gha” or (“mi”) i know it’s the third. If you just tell me “ab”, what do i know? the only musical language i know, that justifies a truly chromatic approach is the second vienna school and what came after. I doubt you’re analyzing schönberg any time soon, so why the fixation on the chromatic scale? Because you know the note names? In fact, if you’re still puzzled by basic stuff like the distinction between ab and g#, solmisation would be twice as beneficial to you, because you can always sing do-re-mi, wether it is in eb-minor or c#-major. It circumvents the whole notation issue, and offers instantly accessible insights. As per the b or a# question again:
g-minor chord = g-b-d
Why? Because it is the 3rd. When you play these notes you hear a triad. A triad has a 3rd. The notation should reflect what you hear, don’t you agree? a# would be #2, a very colourful and distinct dissonance, and not at all what you hear there. To d# however it makes a 5th, not a double flat 6th, so you write a#. You can use this functional approach to deduce the correct notation of any chromaticisms in tonal music, because that is the only rule there is to it, and its really not that hard. If you lack the knowledge of intervalls and their correct use, again solmisation would be helpful. So what is your point insisting on the use if note names? Am i missing sthg from your questions? If i am, sorry, but English is a second language for me.
Edit: I used the german “b” here, which is like the english bb, sorry for the confusion
