# Technique, Theory, Playing Tips and Tricks > Theory, Technique, Tips and Tricks >  Is a# the same as bb?

## Cragger

What is the difference between A# and Bb? The way I see it is, if a song calls for Bb, I find the A chord I want to use and slide it up a fret. Is this wrong? Is it the same thing as finding the B chord and sliding it down a fret?

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## kww

There is no difference between A sharp and B flat. So long as you are using a four finger chord, sliding an A chord up a fret and a B chord down a fret will both yield a B flat chord. If you have open strings, you can still "slide up" by putting a finger on the first fret of the open strings, but sliding down is a tad more complicated ...

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## gnelson651

> What is the difference between A# and Bb? #The way I see it is, if a song calls for Bb, I find the A chord I want to use and slide it up a fret. #Is this wrong? #Is it the same thing as finding the B chord and sliding it down a fret?


No, its called an enharmonic. They are both the same position on a closed chord.

And yes, you would move a half step (one fret) one way or the other depending on your chord.

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## Walter Newton

Yes they are the same, whether it's called one or the other will basically depend on the key the song is in.

For example in a "Flat" key like F the notes are

F G A Bb C D E F 

In the "Sharp" key of B the notes are 

B C# D# E F# G# A# B

The A# and Bb are the same note but notated differently depending on the context (as Glenn said this is called an enharmonic).

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## ApK

In non-equal temperments, possible on instruments like the violin, it's possible that A# and Bb will not be exactly the same pitch (http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html)
But in equal tempertment, like on mando, piano, etc, the different names are used purely for theory, to clearly communicate the key, context and intention.

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## jmcgann

On mando it's likely one of your pair of strings is close to A# than Bb anyway  

Obligatory Tuning Joke For Today.

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## Katie

It's like homonym. They both sound the same, but they are spelled differently and are usually used in different contexts. Fortunately, you don't have to worry about that unless you are writing music, or analyzing the harmony or something.
-Katie

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## Richard H

Bb is a lot more friendly than A# for one thing.

BTW, I'm a bit rusty on all this. Since a scale must, as far as I remember, have a different letter for each note, what are the notes in A#: 
A#, B#, C double sharp?, D#, E#, F.. I give up.

And what is the key signature? If you select A# on Band in a Box, it shows four flats - A, B, D, E.

I'm lost.

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## Walter Newton

Richard, you're talking about a KEY of A#, which nobody would ever use...the key signature would (theoretically) have 10 sharps if I'm not mistaken! #As you realized it's much simpler to spell out the key as Bb. #

However A# NOTES and A# CHORDS can come up in other keys, as in the key of B I spelled out above. #

Not sure exactly what BIAB is doing but I think you confused it....the key with 4 flats it's giving you is Ab (Ab Bb C Db Eb F G Ab)

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## kudzugypsy

it sounds like you can easily visualize a A chord, thus sliding it up 1/2 step is easier to visualize than actually making a Bb chord - which is ok, but..

one thing to remember is that chords have home keys and related chords within those keys that often (esp in Folk styles) follow a pattern, in the long run, its gonna be easier to learn how all these chords work together BECAUSE they often follow a pattern - for example, many tunes have the progression I &gt; bIII ( 1 chord to b3rd chord ) #which in the key of G = G &gt; Bb. all this falls into proper chord theory ( i wont get into this - long subject ) and to think of that same progression as I &gt; #II ( 1 chord to #2 chord - G &gt; A#) is just going to make the aural recognition of this movement (progression, chord change, whatever you want to call it) more difficult.

btw, to illustrate how all this works in the jam...90% of the time if you see (hear i should say) G going to Bb, the NEXT chord is more than likely C ... (think Boone Creeks great 70's classic 'One Way Track') that is just how the harmony moves. #when you get *way* up there in theory study, one of the MOST important movements you will begin to recognize are chords that *cycle* thru the circle of 5ths (ok, i wont get any further into this - just think Sweet Georgia Brown, or the bridge to Rawhide) - if you mentally know that F7 is usually *cycled* into Bb7, it all follows a set pattern...in other words, you wouldnt think F7 &gt; A#7 - although its the *same* chord, you would just be complicating your thinking.

i guess what all this is trying to say is that you need to determine the FUNCTION of the chord within the progression to determine which one to call it. now take G# or F# or D# or C#, now, in those cases, you WOULD normally think in sharps, and NOT Ab, or Gb...this goes back to the key cycle and way to much info for this post.....

its like math, you have 2+2=4 and you could have 6-2=4....its not hard, it just takes some basic fundamentals.

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## Richard H

"Not sure exactly what BIAB is doing but I think you confused it....the key with 4 flats it's giving you is Ab (Ab Bb C Db Eb F G Ab)" Walter Newton

WN, I was just trying to remember where those double sharps are used.

On the BIAB score, they give 4 flats for the key signature of D#, G# and A# (also of course Ab). When I try to put in the A# scale, they just use the accidentals.

Also, they give 5 flats as the signature for C# and 6 for F#.

Not sure why I'm even interested in this at 10 minutes to midnight.

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## Walter Newton

Richard, I believe D#, G#, and A# major are all keys which you could theoretically spell out as an exercise, with double sharps, but in the "real world" they would be referred to as their enharmonic flat keys (Eb, Ab, Bb). I don't think BIAB is giving you good answers for some of these theoretically possible, but never used keys.

Does this help?

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## Richard H

Yes, the good old circle.
Someday I'll try to decide if some tunes never made it with musicians (expecially classical tunes) because they were originally written in a "hard" key.

Db didn't seem to hurt Body and Soul. But I noticed our pianist left out "I just called to say I love you" in a book she was selecting tunes from and I suspect it was the Db key. At least she seemed more keen when I rewrote it in Bb and C.

Then again I have successful keyboard friends who play everything in C and let the transpose button do the rest.
But we are straying far from A# and Bb. Sorry.

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## david blair

A double flat (bb) notation is sometimes used to indicate a full diminished chord, no?Anyone?

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## jmcgann

bb and ## are used in classical music but you rarely see them in a jazz, pop or "other" context.

In theory, we call a Cdim7 1 b3 b5 bb7 but spell it C Eb Gb A (rather than Bbb which, let's face it, is just gnarly to read!)

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## Ted Eschliman

I've always felt that Bb has a much sadder sound than an A#...

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## jmcgann

Yes, because the B is drooping. The A would be raising it's head, which is a prouder sound.

Someone arrest me now

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## glauber

Everyone wants to be called "a sharp" one, but noone wants to "be flat". 

(ouch!)

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## glauber

By the way, if you play just temperament instruments, as Apk said, there is a big difference; A# is noticeably sharper than Bb. I play Baroque flute, and there are different fingerings for some of these notes, others you have to "bend" up or down depending on context. Mandolin players have it easy!

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## Richard H

According to Robert Fulghum, refrigerators hum in B-flat. "The electrical motor of the refrigerator gives off a sixty-cycle B-flat hum, as do all motors that run on 120-volt AC current. The washing machine, dryer, electric heater, blender, hair dryer, coffeepot, and all the rest are B-flat appliances."

Not sure what good this is to anybody, unless someone wants to write a "Symphony for mandolin and major appliances"

BTW, I find that double flats are much less of a problem since the advent of tubeless tyres. At least, you can usually reach home.

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## Tom C

as Walter stated....
For example in a "Flat" key like F the notes are
F G A Bb C D E F 

It would not be 
F G A A# C D E F 

as you would be missing the "B" in the scale. And you would not have 2 "A"s in the scale.

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## Katie

> I've always felt that Bb has a much sadder sound than an A#...


But D minor is the saddest of all keys.
*^_^*

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## david blair

Actually I think A flat minor is sadder than Dm. Seriously dramatic movie stuff. 

Dm tunes, like Besame Mucho have a kind of inspiring theme, but Abm is heart wrenching!

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## anchorman86

> According to Robert Fulghum, refrigerators hum in B-flat. "The electrical motor of the refrigerator gives off a sixty-cycle B-flat hum, as do all motors that run on 120-volt AC current. The washing machine, dryer, electric heater, blender, hair dryer, coffeepot, and all the rest are B-flat appliances."


I thought I was going absolutely crazy!! I'm so relieved someone else noticed this (I have perfect pitch so I tend to notice almost anytime something produces a recognizable tone).

FWIW the eight-note A# major scale would be A#, B#, Cx, D#, E#, Fx, Gx, A# - but you wouldn't ever use double sharps ("x") or double flats ("bb") in a key signature. Most often when double sharps pop up it's either when a song goes into a secondary dominant from a key with many sharps, or to create a leading tone in a minor key where the 7th scale degree is already sharp (ie D# minor - the leading tone is Cx). This, like Tom C said, is to follow the rule that there is only one note per letter name in each scale.

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## jmcgann

> A#, B#, Cx, D#, E#, Fx, Gx, A# -


Only a pervert and/or Hindemith would write that as something other than Bb. theory or not

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## groveland

These are the 'legit' major and minor key signatures. There are zillions of theoretical key signatures and modes that aren't conducive to a key signature. It's my understanding that Bartok would occasionally mix flats and sharps in key signatures (Levine). 

In a piece of modal software I am particularly familiar with, the key signatures are really troublesome. (So I can understand the BIAB challenge.) When attempting to describe ALL scales in ALL keys, it becomes apparent pretty quickly that 100% accurate use of accidentals (double sharps, double flats, no repeats of note names) can easily _obscure_ the lessons in intervals, music, repeated patterns and relationships, and the meaning from the largest audience. IMHO.

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## Richard H

"By the way, if you play just temperament instruments, as Apk said, there is a big difference; A# is noticeably sharper than Bb." Glauber

Since this is so, there must be a measurable difference in frequency.

On the sites I've checked, where A=440, Bb/A# (just above it)is given as 466.16 hz.

So is this Bb, A# or a compromise?

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## EdSherry

Richard -- Welcome to the world of "well tempered" and "equal tempered" scales.

If one were to start with (say) an F note and play the 4th (Bb) of a "just tempered" scale (one that takes advantages of the natural Pythagorean relationships between notes) starting on F, it would be a slightly different pitch than the fifth note (A#) of a "just tempered" scale starting on D#. #Instruments tuned so that they sounded "right" in one key would be "off" in another key.

The decision was made back several centuries ago to "fix" this "problem" by moving to a "well tempered" scale (and later an "equal tempered" scale), in which all intervals (other than octaves) are adjusted slightly. 

Bach wrote "The Well Tempered Clavier" to show off the fact that the new-fangled instrument could play equally well in all keys. 

The result is that (nowadays) there is no difference between A# and Bb. #

See 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_temperament

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## jmcgann

> The result is that (nowadays) there is no difference between A# and Bb. #


Nowadays in orchestras and among non-fretted instruments, there is VERY MUCH a difference, as those folks are VERY picky about intonation in context of the music. they are not equal temperment fans by and large!

This was news to me until I started working with orchestras- them folks are a might picky about their tuning, and any professional classical fiddler/violist/cellist/bassist/clarinetist/horn/oboe/bassoon/trumpet etc. will tell you the difference between A# and Bb is very real in their world.

Piano is another world altogether, and lots of orchestra players sniff at it the way they sniff at fretted instruments

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## EdSherry

John -- I stand corrected. #Live and learn. # 

(Then again, I don't hang around symphony players much. #Somehow, fitting a symphony into a Celtic or gypsy jazz session or a bluegrass or swing jam doesn't strike me as practicable.)

I agree that, when playing in a particular key, it sounds "sweeter" to use just temperament -- which, as I suspect, is why the orchestral types like it.

But I learned a long time ago that, if I try to tune a fretted instrument to get that "sweet" just-tempered sound in one key, it is hopelessly out of tune in other keys.

Fiddlers can adjust their finger placement ever-so-slightly to capture the differences. #But for those of us unable to make such micro-intonation-adjustments on our fretted instruments, I fear we're stuck with equal temperament and all it implies.

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## Richard H

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html

has some interesting info on this.

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## jmcgann

Ed- it's true, I am learning about this stuff via steel guitar as well. Those guys almost all tune to a form of JI rather than ET, which makes the triads sound beautiful, but as soon as you leave them, all bets are off, to my ears. The gains in "sweetness" make the dissonances sound bad by contrast- and I'm a guy who loves sweet dissonance.

The steel players tend to tune the "beats" out of the major thirds (which are really sharp in ET). Of course, once THAT note functions as something else, it's just flat...but the way the steel works, most players tune to the proscribed functions of the pedals and levers and then fudge the bar to make little corrections. It's a beast to play already- then the whole "playing in tune" thing- makes you want to take up something easy like subatomic physics!

We'd need an 84 fret octave to play "in tune" that way. Equal temperment is a system that is out of tune in order to split the out of tuneness across the spectrum so we can play in any of the keys...and it doesn't bother most of us. But I am friends with the Boston Pops guitarist, and he tells me no matter how "in tune" he is, he gets dirty looks from the section players (who are mostly Boston Symphony types) and admonishions to "tune it up!".

Pianos are not tuned straight up 440 the way we tune- the pitch is "stretched" so the bottom and top registers are either higher or lower than 440 (I forget which is which, but I think the high end gets around 442 or higher).

This spring, I wrote 4 arrangements for orchestra that we (The Boston Edge- me, Seamus Connolly on fiddle and Joe Derrane on accordion) played with a local symphony (The New Philharmonia in Newton, MA). The difference between working with the Boston Pops and the locals was that there were a lot of obviously bored to the gills players in the Boston Pops- the players in the local orchestra were very enthusiastic about playing Irish music with us, and actually APPLAUDED the arrangements when they read through them! They weren't worried that the instruments weren't JI- they were playing music for the love of it and not as hired mercenaries.

I admire people who obsess about that tuning stuff, but it's not my world either. I love my A=440 tuner! I am a guitarist and mandolinist, and just dabble at a few other things, but it's fun to see how the other half lives and what they get into. You should see the posts about tuning on the Steel Guitar Forum!

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## groveland

I've had this book on my shelf collecting dust, "Harmonic Experience" by W. A. Mathieu. Anybody read it? I blew the dust off it this morning at breakfast... Seems like a wonderful wild ride for the ears! #I wonder if these old R&R ears are up to the task.

Are there certain selected ET intervals that will exhibit JI characteristics? #Probably shouldn't start posting before the coffee's on...

<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>Edit: #The "Harmonic Experience" deals with the difference between A# and Bb, Just Intonation, Equal Temperment, what we hear, why we hear it, etc. #I was certain someone here had read it and could shed more light on the topic at hand. Apparently no takers...</span>

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## Strange1

Speaking of sad. This whole thread went from sad to pitiful in just a short while. I hope the originator was able to glean the info needed from all the chaff. BTW, hence I will tune my mando to the fridge. I just wish it was a mite smaller. My current one won't fit in the back of my 4 runner.

Jack

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## JimD

> f one were to start with (say) an F note and play the 4th (Bb) of a "just tempered" scale (one that takes advantages of the natural Pythagorean relationships between notes) starting on F, it would be a slightly different pitch than the fifth note (A#) of a "just tempered" scale starting on D#.


You mean "just intoned" -- by definition just intervals are not tempered. 

Also, "Pythagorean" refers to all of the fifths being tuned purely -- this leaves us with troublesome thirds etc. Just intonation is a tuning in which *all* of the intevals are tuned purely.




> Bach wrote "The Well Tempered Clavier" to show off the fact that the new-fangled instrument could play equally well in all keys.


More precisely -- old instrument, new tuning (well-temperament) -- many musicians of Bach's time used tunings that hid the worst intervals in the least played keys. Since Bach used all the keys in this set, there was no place to hide...

By the way, I read the Wikipedia article. Be careful with that one. There are some strange things in it. You might want to read the tuning articles in the Grove's Dictionary of Music instead.

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## jmcgann

> Speaking of sad. This whole thread went from sad to pitiful in #just a short while.


WELLLLL EXCUUUUUUUSE ME!  JACK!!

On behalf of all the chaff artists...I guess we post because we might be sharing information that someone might find useful. We wrote about tuning and notation issues that happen to _actual musicians._ If it's not your cup of tea, don't read it. This IS the theory and technique tips section, right?!?!

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## groveland

> What is the difference between A# and Bb?





> hope the originator was able to glean the info needed from all the chaff.


I think the question was answered to the poster's satisfaction in the first response. 

But there's so much fun to be had beyond the stock answer. "What is the difference between A# and Bb" opens the door to tunings and the history of our system and the science. Hence the rest of the posts. It happens a lot here, and I like it. Some of the best discussions come out of rabbit trails. No disrespect intended. It's just hard to tell when it all deserves a new thread - You don't want to break up the momentum...

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## EdSherry

John -- I agree that subatomic physics is simple compared to pedal steel. #

At least I think I understand subatomic physics as well as any layman can [a consequence of two years as an undergraduate physics major before I saw the light, a solid grounding in differential equations and probability theory, and a lot of reading since]. #Pedal steel theory is beyond me, though I've been trying to play steel for 20+ years [for the last 6 years under the tutelage of Bobby Black, who I was fortunate enough to play with in a band several years ago]. #Those steel players THINK differently!

JimD -- You may well be right technically. But I used the terminology I'm familiar with. #To my knowledge, plenty of people use the term "just tempered" to refer to what I was referring to. #"Just intoned" may be the preferred language, but I don't think that I was misusing the terminology. #Similarly with "Pythagorean." #I'm sure that Wikipedia has limitations, but I don't own a copy of Grove (not at $2,500+!). #I acknowledge your point about the distinction between a "new instrument" and a "new tuning." #My mistake.

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## JimD

Ed -- I beg to differ. The correct term is Just Intonation. The definition of temperament is "a system of tuning in which the intervals deviate from the pure (acoustically correct) intervals".

If you have heard plenty of people use the term incorrectly, that doesn't make them right -- except perhaps in a "wikipedia" sense.

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## JimD

Some good references on Just Intonation:

Just Intonation Primer

Kyle Gann on Just Intonation

History of Tuning

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## EdSherry

Jim -- I think we are in agreement. #People may use terminology "incorrectly." #That is a fact of how people use language. #I used the language I'm familiar with. #It may well be wrong as a conceptual matter. 

In any case, I don't think we're in disagreement about the fundamental point -- namely, that "just temperament" (and/or "just intonation") differs from "equal temperament," in the sense that A# and Bb are "the same note" in the context of "equal temperament" but are different when one considers "just temperament/intonation."

Indeed, my (limited) understanting is that the concept of "just intonation/temperament" is inherently tied to the reference pitch. #If you start at F, then Bb (the fourth of an F scale) is one pitch. #If you start at Eb, then Bb (the fifth of an Eb scale) is a different pitch if one uses just temperament/intonation. #If you start at C, then Bb (the flatted seventh of the C scale) is still another pitch. #Which of these is "the" "correct" pitch for Bb? #Beats the hell out of me.

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## JimD

OK -- Your point about the pitches is correct. 

What is the point you are trying to make now by continuing to use incorrect terminology?

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## EdSherry

Jim -- I've looked into the matter more, and you're right. #

I'm certainly not trying to perpetuate incorrect terminology. #(I make my living by drawing fine distinctions.) #In future, I'll use the "just intonation" terminology that you suggest. #Thanks for the "heads up."

But you seem to be acknowledging that others use the terminology that I used, though you suggest that it is "incorrect terminology." #That's fine. #

As I see it, language is a tool. #If my usage is within the range of what others use, then I'd suggest that it is not "incorrect" other than in a pedantic sense. #I'm all for drawing pedantic distinctions. but that does not detract from my basic point -- that equal temperament is different from just intonation. #On that, we seem to agree.

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## JimD

Actually. I wasn't acknowledging that others use that terminology. Since you kept insisting that you've heard it used that way, I wasn't going to contradict you.

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## Shana Aisenberg

[QUOTE]I've had this book on my shelf collecting dust, "Harmonic Experience" by W. A. Mathieu. Anybody read it? 

Yes, I read it and worked through it. If you wish to learn to actually use just intonation as opposed to only theorizing, this is a very good workbook with plenty of hands on exercises. 

For anyone who plays fiddle or steel guitar, having working knowledge of these temperaments is highly useful. And regarding pedal steel (and sub atomic physics), I prefer playing lap steel. We don't need no stinkin' pedals 

Seth

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## jmcgann

Thanks JimD! The Kyle Gann site is really mind bending; I can't wrap my mind around the math, but it is some crazy ear training.

Most people are gonna say "shut up, use a tuner and you are in tune". But as the Firesign Theater so aptly pointed out in the '60's:

*Everything you know is wrong!*  

Since mandolin can never truly be "perfectly in tune" by most concepts of tuning, we are safe

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## groveland

Whoa, having started the Mathieu book and worked through the Kyle site a bit - Now I know you guys are completely familiar with this stuff, but I have been able to maintain a blissful ignorance of the subject. Some personal epiphanies today: 

It occurs to me that our well-tempered system of tuning, which so many of us take for granted, is synthetic in the sense that we had to trump up some rules and a myriad of adjustments to get around the physical laws and make the notes in a given single octave "portable" to other ranges. 

Jazz is totally dependent on that synthetic system. #It seems that it would follow that jazz harmony can only exist "naturally" within a single octave. And even within a single octave different combinations of notes produce varying degrees of "harmonic success", if I might call it that. 

So I propose that jazz has no more right to exist in the world than polyester or nylon.

This is somehow unsettling. #Somebody, please tell me I'm wrong!

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## JimD

> It occurs to me that our well-tempered system of tuning, which so many of us take for granted, is synthetic in the sense that we had to trump up some rules and a myriad of adjustments to get around the physical laws and make the notes in a given single octave "portable" to other ranges.



Our equal-tempered tuning (well-temperament is a historical family of tunings that predate the current "ET") is artificail in that compromises were made in order to approximate pure tuning (just intonation) in a way that causes all keys to be usable by making them all equally out of tune.  

Our whole harmonic system grew out of this premise. If jazz would have no right to exist, neither would classical music or anything else that has a harmonic basis.

The earlier Pythagorean tuning (i.e. all 5ths pure) was beautiful for Medieval chant and such but impractical for much else. All tuning is a compromise of sorts.

One interesting thing about the Mathieu book is the way he takes just intonation (which works well for the Indian music that he references) and reconciles it with equal temperament so that we can hear the compromises and the approximations -- hearing equal temperament in terms of just intonation, so to speak.

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## Shana Aisenberg

[QUOTE]So I propose that jazz has no more right to exist in the world than polyester or nylon.

This is somehow unsettling. Somebody, please tell me I'm wrong!

I think that just intonation is best suited to playing music over a drone like classical Indian ragas or that is mostly diatonic. I tend ot incorporate just intonation in playing folk styles such as Celtic, blues, Appalachian, klezmer, Scandinavian, etc. Music composed in equal temperament such as jazz or classical tends to be more harmonically complex and I believe is well suited to it. Both temperaments have their strengths and limitations.

Seth

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## jmcgann

Yeah, drones JI and modulations ET. Polyester or bust

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## groveland

Thanks guys. I'll be okay now.

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## Peter Hackman

> Some good references on Just Intonation:
> 
> Just Intonation Primer
> 
> Kyle Gann on Just Intonation
> 
> History of Tuning


I looked at kylegann and found something very puzzling. Among
all these simple rational intervals, like fifth=3/2, there's the
tritone, given as 45/32. How did they arrive at that complex interval?
My guess: the only tritone in the C major scale is
from f to b. f to c #is 3/2, b to c is 16/15, and the quotient
is 45/32.

 However, if we accept the theory that the ear approves primarily
of simple rational relationships one should look at the overtone series.
Let the fundamental c be no. 1; then e is no. 5, and b flat
is no.7 (that's a flat b flat), so the first tritone appearing
is the interval 7/5. The inverse interval would be
10/7, which is larger. Another tritone relationship is
from no. 12, a g, to no. 17, a c sharp (of sorts), giving the interval
17/12. (oh, yes, there is 8 to 11, an f#, but that's a really bad one)

Now the perfect symmetry/ambiguity tritone is the tempered one,
exactly half an octave,
the square root of 2. It turns out that 17/12 is closer
to that #than
the more complex interval 45/32! 

Actually, in math (I'm a retired math lecturer)
 there is a technique, called continued fractions,
for producing rational approximations, and it turns out that
the first three approximations obtained in this manner are 3/2 (but that's a pure fifth!), 7/5, and 17/12 !!

If the perceived relationship between f and b, in Pythagorean c, is
45/32, no wonder it longs to be resolved!

What do we hear, and what do, e.g., #singers produce? I once read about an investigation, trying to decide whether trained singers intonate
Pythagorean or tempered. It turned out their intonation
wasn't good enough to settle the issue.

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## ApK

[QUOTE= (Peter Hackman @ Nov. 13 2006, 09:36)]


> It turned out their intonation
> wasn't good enough to settle the issue.


"Good" enough or "consistant" enough?
Seems like if they sound good enough, then they are good enough, but is it perhaps they modulate a bit more dynamically and variably than a study like that could make use of?

Isn't that part the reason violin has a "voice-like" quality, because the violinist can make microtonal adjustments as they play?

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## Peter Hackman

[QUOTE= (ApK @ Nov. 13 2006, 10:18)]


> Originally Posted by JimD,Nov. 11 2006, 22:47
> 
> It turned out their intonation
> wasn't good enough to settle the issue.
> 
> 
> "Good" enough or "consistant" enough?
> Seems like if they sound good enough, then they are good enough, but is it perhaps they modulate a bit more dynamically and variably than a study like that could make use of?
> 
> Isn't that part the reason violin has a "voice-like" quality, because the violinist can make microtonal adjustments as they play?


I interpreted the statement as ''not close enough to either alternative'';.
Maybe your interpretation is more to the point; I may have to look it up again.

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## Richard H

Wow! When we start using quarter tones like I understand they do in African music, someone's gonna have a lot of fun with this intonation thing.

What do they call those notes anyway? Is the note between A and Bb called A1/2# or Bb1/2b?

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## mandocrucian

List of microtonal intervals

Microtonal notation


B half sharp; B#; B sharp&1/2 &#124;B half flat; Bb; Bb & 1/2

B half-flat is halfway between B and Bb; Bb1/2 is halfway between Bb and A and enharmonically equivalent to A (half sharp)

NH

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## Richard H

Mandocrucian,
You're joking, right?

Why don't we scrap frets and notes altogether and write music in Hz? Unlimited variation.

But then again music is already being used as a form of torture and we don't want to make it any worse.

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## Shana Aisenberg

Some composers use ratios instead of conventional notation for pieces using just intonation.

Seth

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## ApK

The standard notation we speak of is standard only to the western 12-tone system of music. #Other musical cultures have other forms of notation expressing different things.

Hz is a viable one...didn;t the aliens in Close Encounters use that? #:-)

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## Ted Eschliman

That just Hz to even think about...

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## mandolin123

theory,

no flats or sharps between E&F of B&C.

everything else has a fret between it.

My way of thinking.

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## jmcgann

Richard H- if you go beyond mandolin and listen to music from, say, any non-western country, you'll hear notes you didn't know existed. It's very cool out there, and they've been doing it that way for even longer than old time music in the USA. Some of them ferinners don't even use chords 

Just because we don't (intentionally) get 'em on the mandolin doesn't mean they aren't valid, real, or worth considering.

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## hepcat mando

In trying to decipher the difference between A# and Bb you guys have overlooked(much to your chagrin) the obvious. If you look at them sideways the A# looks like a birds beak with profanity coming out of it while the Bb looks like an angry person sticking their tongue out, making them both equally offensive. They don't teach that in college...you have to learn it in the real world.

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## mandocrucian

But it's *not* just non-western music. Listen to any string bending guitarist with an incredible sweet sound (Mark Knopfler, Richard Thompson, BB King etc.) and when they do doublestop bending (especially), it's to just intonated inervals. And the blues guys are (intuitiontially) all over the microtonal map!

Ever notice when a fiddler and a mandolinist play the exact same tune (especially when doublestops are involved), the fiddle version is likely to sound better, sweeter.... #It's because of the microtonal adjustments to the notes on the fiddle. #Vassar Clements is playing something other than the 12-tone-equal-tempered (12TET) scale. And so are all those old-time and Cajun fiddlers.

(When these fiddle players say that _you can't really get it off the printed page_, a big part of what they mean has to do with intonation. The notation is an approximation, and except for the neutral 3rds, 7ths, etc - more-or-less quarter-tone intervals - rarely notated.) You've got to listen to the records if you are going play those adjustments of pitch.)

Listen to Curley Ray Cline play "the notes between the notes". Ralph Stanley doesn't sing restricted to the pitches on the piano, and neither does Etta James and hundreds and hundreds of other singers. And Doyle and every other great vocal harmony outfit (Golden Gate Quartet, Sons Of The Pioneers, etc. etc.) are not in 12TET; if they were, it wouldn't sound nearly as magical.

And _anything_ said about string bending guitarists and fiddle players applies in spades to any of the slide instruments: slide guitar, steel guitar, pedal steel, dobro.

Bagpipes are not pitched to 12TET. Flute players can bend notes by rolling the flute back or forward against the lip. Autoharpists don't tune to 12TET; that's why they always have 3 or 4 instruments onstage. An instrument will sound great in 2 or 3 keys, but if they want to play in some different key, they'll pick up the instrument which has been tuned for optimal consonance in that particular key.

I was on a workshop panel a few years ago with a couple big name acoustic players. I brought up the subject of microtonal adjustments to intonation as it related to a sweet "tone" (but it's really non-12TET intonation rather than timbre), and to my astonishment, it became apparent that neither of those guys knew what I was talking about. 

With the overwhelming dominance of 12TET music here in the west, especially in mainstream music, listeners are programmed to hear and expect that intonation. And they register non-western (or folk based) music and players as being out-of-tune. #But it's *not* _"out of tune"_; it's just a different way of carving up the octave.

But once you start to _"hear it"_ (and having someone demonstrate the differences between, say, just-3rds vs 12TET-3rds will speed up the process), you won't/can't turn back. I couldn't stand to go back to playing strictly 12TET pitches; if I couldn't microtonally tweak my notes with bending, I think I'd just put down the mandolin for good and switch over all the way to a non-fretted instrument.

Niles H

PS: Come to the blues mando bootcamp and we will get into the use of non-12TET intonation. If you don't start using them, you'll sound like Pat Boone instead of Little Richard (metaphorically)!

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## ApK

> But it's *not* just non-western music. Listen to any string bending guitarist with an incredible sweet sound (Mark Knopfler, Richard Thompson, BB King etc.) and when they do doublestop bending (especially), it's to just intonated inervals. And the blues guys are (intuitiontially) all over the microtonal map!


Yeah, that's true, and while you're unlikely to see those blues bends represented in standard notation using those half-sharp and half-flat symbols very often, you will often see them in tab with notations to bend or slide a fraction of a half step.

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## mandocrucian

> Yeah, that's true, and while you're unlikely to see those blues bends represented in standard notation using those half-sharp and half-flat symbols very often, you will often see them in tab with notations to bend or slide a fraction of a half step.


Electric guitar notation and tab has developed it's own way of denoting the partial step bends and such. But it's different in one sense - the notated note is where the finger is placed, while the arrow tells how much to stretch the string. #It could be 1/4 step, or a 1/2 step, a full tone, or even a minor 3rd (1.5 steps). If it is going to another diatonic or chromatic pitch (more-or-less) that target pitch may be notated with a note head within a set of () rather than "1/2 step" above the bend symbol. For a fretted instrument, this is very effective, especially in conjuntion with a tablature stave.

Now if it is only a stave of standard notation, you'll find slurrings, bendings or (glissandi)slides notated conventionally. And with old-time fiddle transcriptions (say in *Fiddler Magazine*), you _will_ see the half-sharp and half-flat symbols being used to notate quarter-tone neutrals.

When you get into the area of notated music or transcriptions of Turkish and Middle Eastern music, you'll see these half-sharps and half-flats being used as part of the key signatures, as well as accidentals. The Arabic maqamat (scales) have quarter-tone intervals in them.

For example, the _"freygish"_ scale (I'm using the Klezmer name) which is found all over the middle-east as well as eastern europe and the Balkans - in the _west_ (on 12-TET instruments) would be: *D Eb F# G A Bb C D* ; or by scale degree: 1 b2 3 4 5 b6 b7 8 
(5th mode of the harmonic minor scale; in this case G harmonic minor, played from D to D)

but in its more _authentic_ form it is:
*D Ed F# G A Bd C D (ascending) &#124;&#124; D C Bb A G F# Ed D (descending)*
1 2d(half-flat) 3 4 5 6d(half flat) d7(half-flat)* 8 &#124;&#124; 8 b7 b6 5 4 3 2d 1

<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>*Relating to a D major scale C# is the 7th, so C is actually a 1/4 tone down from that making the maj 7th half-flatted". 
(If I had used C Major with no sharps in the key signature, there would not be this possible confusion: i.e. #*&#124;&#124; C Dd E F G Ad Bd C &#124; C Bb Ab G F E Dd C &#124;&#124;*)</span>

The difference bewteen guitar and oud/violin is how you get to those quarter-tones - bending up to them from a fretted note on a guitar vs. placing the finger down on the string right at that quarter-tone pitch on a fretless instrument.

But the Turks and Arabs use different amounts of sharpness and flatness for various interval for what we might consider to be the 'same' scale. It gets pretty complicated. I had started getting more into the Middle-East/North African stuff (via Greek music, which is a good, transitional doorway from west to east), but after 9/11 and all that, I got disgusted with the _entire_ region and said "screw all that" and put those Cds back on the shelves. I figure I can get plenty of quarter-tones from Norway and Sweden, not to mention good ol' American gutbucket blues. _Ah-hawh-haw-haw_

NH

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## Peter Hackman

Nobody has mentioned Harry Partch?

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## johnhgayjr

A friend recently told me how he trips up harmonica players who can't look at the guitar and figure out the key. #Tell 'em you're in E sharp. #Even those guys with all the harmonicas on their harmonica belt can't figure that one out. #Or you could use the key that Frank Wakefield uses on a tune on the Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza disk - K flat sharp!!

John Gay
Memphis

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## Richard H

Richard H- if you go beyond mandolin and listen to music from, say, any non-western country, you'll hear notes you didn't know existed. It's very cool out there, and they've been doing it that way for even longer than old time music in the USA. Some of them ferinners don't even use chords 

- I get the impression even the Celtics didn't use chords.
- I sometimes get invited to play along at parties where Indians (from India) beat their drums and play the harmonium (?) It features a lot in their music and surely must be tempered like a piano. I don't know. Maybe the singers bend the notes.
- "Foreign" music always seems harder when you read it. For instance, Steve Mullins (Mando Mag.) says that in Venezuelan music, the mandolin and cuatro music is really in 5/8 but the drum is playing "a steady 2/4 rhythm beneath the melodic quintuplets."

Most of the music I'm playing nowadays is Venezuelan and I have no problem as long as I don't try to analyse it.

- Of course, on this site all that should really matter is whether Big Mon was even-tempered, mean-tempered or just tempered.

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## jmcgann

Notating folk music is like taking home a plastic bag of mountain air and putting it in a terrarium.

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## EdSherry

John -- and your point is? #I do that every time I go to the mountains. #Doesn't everyone? #(Hee, hee ...)

Seriously, "traditional" Western notation was developed in the context of "traditional" Western European music. #Not surprisingly, it has to be augmented to deal with other musical idioms that don't share the Western European major/minor framework.

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## jmcgann

That's what I meant to say, Ed!  

Really, notation has little to do with music (as a performance art) at all. It's fabulous as a tool for expressing theory, but too many people try to get a concept of "style" from a page, and it just ain't happening. Without the ear and soul, the page is a drawing of a beautiful place-not the actual place itself.

What I mean (for example) is people using O'Neills Music of Ireland to learn Irish music without steeping in recordings/sessions etc.

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## EdSherry

John -- I couldn't agree more. #

I was recently asked to play rhythm guitar on a recording of a classically-trained violinist who wanted to play Irish fiddle tunes. #

He had great classical technique, and could sight-read like nobody's business, but my gosh he was clueless as to what the music should sound like!

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## JeffD

There is no music on the page. Just dots and lines. I noticed that when you take a piece of sheet music, roll it up and stick it in your ear, the sounds it makes are not the musical at all.

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## EdSherry

JeffD -- Pete Seeger had a book entitled "Henscratches and Flyspecks" on reading standard notation. Sounds about right to me. Lines like a chicken scratching in the dust, and dots like flyspecs on the paper.

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## Walter Newton

> There is no music on the page. Just dots and lines. I noticed that when you take a piece of sheet music, roll it up and stick it in your ear, the sounds it makes are not the musical at all.


Isn't calling printed notation "music" analogous to calling a recipe "food"

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## mrmando

I've seen a few mandolins with microfrets ... and there are several bending & sliding techniques mandolinists can use to get at the pitches between the frets. On bowed strings I go back & forth between classical and folk, and have to really watch what I'm doing sometimes.

Even if A# and Bb are enharmonic equivalents, that doesn't mean the symbols are interchangeable, as some people have pointed out. I remember a quick pickup rehearsal where the bass player was trying to bring me up to speed on the progression. He said it was "F D A# C" or something like that, pretty standard I-vi-IV-V. But he SHOULD have said "F D minor B-flat C."

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## mrmando

> There is no music on the page. Just dots and lines. I noticed that when you take a piece of sheet music, roll it up and stick it in your ear, the sounds it makes are not the musical at all.


Well, you have to set it on fire, and then if IT doesn't make a musical sound ... YOU will. 

Notation is an incredibly useful tool. Sure you don't learn everything you need to know about Irish tunes from O'Neill's, but part of the reason for that is that it's incredibly bare-bones notation. It's at least theoretically possible to write down much of the interpretation a player might bring to a tune, but it's not very efficient.

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## JeffD

> Notation is an incredibly useful tool.


I quite agree. And I love perusing tune books looking for a gem to share next jam. But I can only do that because I have done a whole lot of listening, and have absorbed the genre, be it Celtic, or ole timey, or bluegrass, or country waltz,so that I can "look at a tune" on the page and "hear" how its supposed to go.

Being "paper trained" myself, I came to it somewhat handicapped - I knew my E# from my F, and my hemi-semi-demi-quavers, but it was a while before I could play music.

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## Shana Aisenberg

[QUOTE]Nobody has mentioned Harry Partch?

You mentioned him  

Anyone interested in microtonal music should read Genesis of a Music and listen to CDs of his work. A true American genius! I've also read a great biography about him by Bob Gilmore. 

Seth

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## Note360

This was probably answered already. A# and Bb are technically exactly the same (no kidding). However, theoretically they are very different. First of all A# and Bb have different uses and key signatures and (forgiveme if I am wrong) scales and chords and sounds. Just remember because it sounds the same doesn't mean it is. The perfect example is in chords or arpeggios. If you play a 7 chords then just because the 1st and the 8th are the same it doesn't mean you can ligitimately play the 8th and have it sound the same. Actually, try it out it will sound bad.

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## jackofall

I liked the point about the string-bending gitbox players. I always loved the way BB does that thing with the deep bend that never *quite* gets there. It has the same effect as the sus4 chord where you wait for the resolution. With BB the resolution doesn't usually happen, and you really do end up feeling blue. Kinda gentle tension.

A friend told me a story which I assume is very old. At a formal party in a music college, one of the students was playing the piano to entertain the guests. During one piece he was playing, someone interrupted him to ask a question and he stopped playing having just struck a sus4 chord. A minute later, the door was flung wide, and an annoyed-looking professor stormed into the room. He marched over to the piano, thumped out the major chord to which the hanging sus4 should have resolved, then stalked back to bed without a word.

Apocryphal, but it made me laugh.

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## levin4now

Look at a piano. Find the A note and the B note. The black key between them is both A# and Bb.

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## jmcgann

everybody knows you can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish 

True story

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## EdSherry

John -- Oh, I dunno. I have tuna fish all the time. They sell it at the grocery store near where I live.

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## mandolooter

Quote
According to Robert Fulghum, refrigerators hum in B-flat. "The electrical motor of the refrigerator gives off a sixty-cycle B-flat hum, as do all motors that run on 120-volt AC current. The washing machine, dryer, electric heater, blender, hair dryer, coffeepot, and all the rest are B-flat appliances."

Yea when I first started my tuner would always read B-flat and it took me quite a while to figure out it was the heater humming along...lol.

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## dunbarhamlin

Remember seeing an old instrument with the fingerboard scalloped like a rip saw set to cut towards the nut.

It gave me the impression that fretting hard immediately behind the fret (where the fret board is deeply scalloped) could produce a higher pitch than fretting just in front of the previous fret (where the fretboard was all but level with the crown)

I can't remember where I saw this, unfortunately, but perhaps this was indeed an attempt to allow just intonation on a fretted instrument?

Steve

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