No such thing as a B-sharp

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Max Johnson
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:50 AM

Please, Please...This is ANARCHY!!!

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:35 AM

"When I watch musicians that I respect play, they can all play straight off sheet music. That is how it should be. Anything less damages our culture"

This presupposed that music in our culture was composed and entered into the tradition via a written down form.

Sheet music can only be a snapshot of how one person has documented another persons playing, and by taking this as definitive loses everything that makes it part of the culture. How can one tell what the person who made a song or tune intended from a third party documentation.

What sheet music cannot capture are the nuances that the musician/performer adds to the notes - subtle (or not so subtle)improvisations, variations, the warmth of the tone - things that a skilled musician can do which cannot be documented.

I think it was Leonard Berstein who said that it is easy to tell the difference between a person playing or a machine. The machine is note and meter perfect and totally lacking any aesthetic value, whereby a person's imperfection is what makes music pleasing.

In my opinion, the greatest musicians are those who have the ability to interpret music - if you listen to a recording of them playing, and you know their work, you can tell who it is in an instant.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,999
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:35 AM

I once said to a parent, "I'll believe 10% of what happens at home if you believe 10% of what happens in class."

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: treewind
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:34 AM

Sorry, GUEST posting two up is me, not having noticed loss of cookie...
Anahata

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:32 AM

John wrote:
A proper response to the student's statement would have been the simple reply that "technically there is a C# that is the enharmonic equivalent of the second semitone above C♭ on equal-tempered instruments."

From the practical point of view, a teacher who is teaching their student to read music should at least do this, so that if/when the student encounters a B# or C flat etc. in printed music, they understand how to play it. To start with, they may not need fully to understand WHY it's printed that way.

If a teacher says there is no such note, how do they deal with music that has that note in it?

A piece in the key of C sharp major has a B sharp in the time signature, and though it's unusual, it's valid.
More commonly, a piece in C sharp minor (only four sharps in the key signature) will have B sharps as accidentals.

Same goes for E sharp for music in F# major or minor.

C flat major is possible as a key too (seven flats) and contains an F flat, and G flat (a perfectly vlid and commonly found key) contains C flat as part of the scale.

If you are not teaching playing from music, you might as well not give the notes names at all...

---

The issue of equal tempered vs. mean tone and the rest is a quite unrelated, though it does have some bearing on how notes are played. It doesn't only apply to flat/sharp/natural enharmonics either. In scales other than equal temperament, an E may be different in A major from an E in C major, for example.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:25 AM

Much of the controversy above, BTW, re the theoreticians v. what the folk would actually have known, reminds me of the story of Cecil Sharp's friend looking at one of his transcriptions and saying, "No, you must have taken this down wrong, Cecil. You surely are not trying to tell me that a simple uneducated countryman could sing faultlessly in the Dorian Mode."

~Michael~

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: pavane
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:25 AM

I think there has not been sufficient attention given to two important facts.

First, that sheet music is for the purpose of communication between musicians, who may be separated in space or time. (As pointed out above, you don't have to read to be able to play). So the rules for a notation must be fixed.

Secondly, and mainly important for chordal instruments, the type of chord can easily be seen by the SHAPE it makes on the staff. Check, for example, a dominant 7th - it will ALWAYS look the same, however much you transpose keys - it just moves up or down on the staff. This is one of the lesser-known beauties of the notation, and makes sight-reading easier than it would otherwise be.

If you now decide to write a B# on the staff as C, then in the chord of G# as mentioned above, ITS SHAPE WILL BE CHANGED, and the chord will no longer look as it should.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Zen
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:22 AM

It's not about making music fun. If you have to have music made fun for you before you learn it, you're not going to make it as a musician. It involves study and it involves practice and it involves lots of both. There's no way around it. You have to take your lessons home and practice them. And if you come back and you're not playing them correctly, your teacher has to know that and he has to tell you that it's not right. He can't do that if he doesn't know how to read music. Sorry, but that's the truth.

No.... it's not the truth, it's your opinion.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:20 AM

LOL !!!

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:18 AM

I suggest we call an Extraordinary Special Meeting to discuss all this at D♭ House.

〠♩﹟Michael ♪♭〠

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,999
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:11 AM

Sounds about right, John.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:03 AM

But the real question is:

How is the B# in the Pythagorean Tempered Scale different from that in the Werckmeister III Temper, vs the Vallotti, vs the Kirnberger III Temper, vs the Young Temper vs the Kellner Tempered scales?

And why is there a difference between the Mean Tone Tempered E♭ scale and the Mean Tone Tempered D♯ sufficient for Korg to indicate tunings separately for each (along with each of the above) on their OT-120 Tuner?

Of course every competent music theory teacher will know the answers, and be able instantly to explain to every student.

AND ALL STUDENTS MUST KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS OR THEIR TEACHER IS CONDEMNED TO LISTEN TO ACCORDIONS (PLAYED BADLY) IN ETERNAL HELL!

John

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Will Fly
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 04:22 AM

Don Firth: at the time, not everybody and his pet chicken was trying to do it

Don, I would dearly love to have heard these chickens. Were they yokels?

Incidentally, Josepp, the person who is really qualified to teach music theory is the person who knows how to teach. No amount of knowledge, theoretical and/or practical, is of any use if the person putting it across is a poor teacher. My violin teacher - adept at both classical and traditional playing - is a wonderful teacher, capable of explaining concepts with clarity and, at the same time, always looking for the positive in one's playing.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Darowyn
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 04:03 AM

I don't suppose Josepp has considered the idea that maybe the reported comment of the teacher actually included something like the phrase,
" In the key of C major......."
In most keys there is no B sharp. I make it two out of twenty four.
So if the teacher was teaching scales, he or she was mostly correct, and it would be particularly applicable to the usual keys that a guitar player uses.
When did you last start a tune in F sharp or E flat minor without a capo?
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 01:40 AM

Been trying to learn a little theory got a book..
I too was laboring under the misapprehension that there was no B sharp
it make writing out some scales a bit awkward if you cant put a B sharp now and then.
Also I found that the face/ even good bras don't fit aide memoirs have caused me problems when putting the dots in..
Hopefully the errant blasphemer will read mudcat and discover the true way.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: nager
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 12:54 AM

Who cares? Most folkies play and sing out of tune anyway!!

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 12:46 AM

"No, you don't. You're here to try and pick a fight as usual."

No, Josepp, YOU'RE the one who is here spoiling for a fight, as you do in every thread you open. I have no interest whatsoever in fighting with you. You obviously have an incredible amount of time to waste, judging from the time you spend here. And you're one of these entities who invariably starts out a thread by taking an extreme position with the full intention of stirring up an argument.

In fact, that is obviously your whole purpose here, as is typical of your species.

Nighty night.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 12:11 AM

Crowhugger--

If there's another way to play guitar in meantone or just intonation, it would make my day to know what it is!

John Schneider, I believed, developed a just intonation guitar to play such pieces as Partch's "Barstow". Without his special fingerboard, however, you're probably out of luck! See starting at 4:36:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OH0WgLgaAM

see also
http://www.otherminds.org/shtml/Schneider.shtml

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Crowhugger
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 11:47 PM

Without written music our musical culture would be shared only by demonstration and imitation. In which case it would be the norm to spend enough time to memorize it, then we would spend our lives repeating it, i.e. practising, so it wouldn't be forgotten. If that had been the norm in Bach's time, he would likely have spent more time repeating his already-composed pieces for others to learn, and less time composing new stuff. Considering how much he plagiarized himself, I don't imagine we'd have suffered any great loss of original thought. Further I imagine he would've been well aware of what was groundbreaking in his work and would have ensured its survival.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 11:37 PM

////But your "damaging our culture" ideas seem strange, given where we are?////

A little bit of explanation, please.

////You are aware that one of the basic ideas which motivated the collection of folk music was that culture wasn't just in the hands of people who could read music and discuss the technicalities of music theory? That culture was something that was in the hands of living people going about their everyday lives - and that the music they used as they lived those lives was worth collecting and learning?/////

But if nobody writes it down, how do you transmit it to others, how do you preserve it. Think of the Nag Hammadi Library. If nobody wrote those books down and buried them in the desert far away from marauding Roman soliders and monks, we wouldn't have any Gnostic writings and wouldn't know of all the amazing competing views there were at that time in that area of the world.

Another guy was Charlemagne. He used to have monks write down all kinds of music he heard. People could come to see him and perform for him and if he liked it, he had it written down. He collected hundreds or thousands of these songs. When his son, Louis the Pious, took over after Charlemagne's death, he believed secular and profane music was a sin and had this library burned. As a result, we know virtually nothing about the music of the Dark Ages or the era just after it. It would have been a priceless collection and definitely dealt a blow to culture when we lost it. How much written music was lost when the Christians burned down the Libaray of Alexandria? Probably thousands of pieces--think if we had them now.

And your statement that preserving folk music was achieved by taking it out of the hands of the theoriticians makes me wince. It smacks of the old rightwing distrust of intellectuals.

////(To recap: absolutely there's such a thing as B-sharp, absolutely learn your music theory if you have the opportunity - BUT I think you've got a pretty distored idea of culture. "Western culture" is not in the hands of only the technically educated, and "western music" is not in the hands of those who have studied music theory. To say otherwise is to deny the contribution to the history of music of those who were not educated in music theory. Which is bonkers, and downright perverse in a community of those who listen to and play traditional music!)/////

I totally disagree. We have the Beatles' music today because some eggheads invented the tape recorder which preserved their music for us because they didn't have the theory to do it themselves. If the Beatles had lived in the 18th century, no one would know who they are today. Another example is Louis Chauvin--a brilliant pianist. Only three pieces of his music survive today? Why? Because three people who knew their music theory--Scott Joplin being one of them--wrote those songs down. Without them, all we'd have is a story. What if Bach or Beethoven didn't know how to read and write music?

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Crowhugger
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 11:31 PM

»»"the guitar is an equal tempered instrument"
»»Not if you play it properly.

Dave MacKenzie,
I have always had an ear for the pure intervals and find fretted instruments, and all fixed-intonation instruments, to be very frustrating in this regard.
Best I can figure, to play guitar in a meantone or any untempered scale would require tweaking an open tuning to the intervals used in the desired scale, then changing chords using only pure barres, never any other fingering. But this isn't what most people would call playing "properly" with the exception of slide guitar. But I'm talking about just plain old regular chording, maybe some fingerpicking or plucking, definitely some strumming.
If there's another way to play guitar in meantone or just intonation, it would make my day to know what it is!

Thanks in advance!

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,Richard from Liverpool
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 10:54 PM

Not to disagree with your first and most basic premise (of course there's such a thing as B sharp), and not to denigrate music theory (I received a good musical education, thank you very much)

But your "damaging our culture" ideas seem strange, given where we are?

You are aware that one of the basic ideas which motivated the collection of folk music was that culture wasn't just in the hands of people who could read music and discuss the technicalities of music theory? That culture was something that was in the hands of living people going about their everyday lives - and that the music they used as they lived those lives was worth collecting and learning?

Isn't traditional music part of the foundation of our culture? And that music was often transmitted among people with none of the basics of music theory that you talk about! They may not have been able to read key signatures. Surely they were building up our culture, not damaging it!

If you're implying that culture can only survive in a context of technical education, then surely that torpedoes much of the culture that many of us here love, study, and learn to sing or play?


(To recap: absolutely there's such a thing as B-sharp, absolutely learn your music theory if you have the opportunity - BUT I think you've got a pretty distored idea of culture. "Western culture" is not in the hands of only the technically educated, and "western music" is not in the hands of those who have studied music theory. To say otherwise is to deny the contribution to the history of music of those who were not educated in music theory. Which is bonkers, and downright perverse in a community of those who listen to and play traditional music!)

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 10:20 PM

////In principle I agree with Josepp (and how often does THAT happen!??).////

No, you don't. You're here to try and pick a fight as usual.

Folks, I'll say this one more time:

I'm not talking about performance. If you're good, you're good--everybody knows that. I'm talking about accepting money to teach something that you are not qualified to teach.

If you teach 500 people music theory wrong and some of them, in turn, teach this to others--you are damaging our culture. There is only one right way to teach music theory. You can't pick and choose and it is not a matter of faith. In Western music theory, there IS such a thing as a B-sharp whether in equal temperament or any other. If you teach people that there isn't, you are wrong. It's as simple as that.

Just because you're good on guitar or a great opera vocalist that does not automatically qualify you to teach music theory. What qualifies you is knowing your music theory.

It's not about making music fun. If you have to have music made fun for you before you learn it, you're not going to make it as a musician. It involves study and it involves practice and it involves lots of both. There's no way around it. You have to take your lessons home and practice them. And if you come back and you're not playing them correctly, your teacher has to know that and he has to tell you that it's not right. He can't do that if he doesn't know how to read music. Sorry, but that's the truth.

And if you're taking lessons from anyone who is skipping the music-reading part and only focusing on performance, I would recommend finding another teacher immediately. You need both. The idea that music theory is going to hurt you is pure stupidity. I've never known anyone whose musical abilities suffered because they knew their music theory. I've known people whose careers never got off the ground beause they didn't know it.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 09:01 PM

'triple sharps' and 'triple flats'

Mark my words, laddy, go too far down that road and you'll end up silly in the head..

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 08:07 PM

Even more esoterically, it is theoretically possible in certain circumstances, in Western European Music Theory, to have 'triple sharps' and 'triple flats'. If you want to challenge that, you really don't know as much Music Theory as you think you do.

But I also agree with Don, most of the time of simple music making, that is irrelevant., and I agree totally with Don's 'excessive' line.. :-)

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 07:47 PM

In principle I agree with Josepp (and how often does THAT happen!??).

However, the chances that very many people who frequent this forum—or, for that matter, the vast majority of symphony orchestra musicians or classical soloists—are ever going to be called on to make a distinction between C natural and B# are rare indeed.

In fact, one can have a perfectly stupendous career as a world famous singer or instrumentalist without ever encountering a situation where the matter would make a difference. Distinctions between enharmonic notes (one tone that can be written a couple of different ways) has to do with reading music, not playing it.

For example, one of the greatest—and best known—basses/bass-baritones of all time, is the late Ezio Pinza (Ombra Mai Fu from Handel's "Xerxes"), perhaps best remembered for "Some Enchanted Evening" in "South Pacific." Pinza never learned to read music expertly. He could read in a very rudimentary manner, but he could not pick up a piece of music and sight read. He knew—and sang—dozens of full-length operas, oratorios, and concert programs, which he memorized by having someone play the score for him on the piano. He had a very precise and retentive ear!

So memorizing and singing a fairly large repertoire of folk songs and ballads without being able to read music is, compared to Pinza's repertoire, a stroll through the park on a summer day!

By the way, if Ezio Pinza "damaged our culture," someone's going to have to explain, in detail, just exactly how.

I became interested in singing when I was in my late teens and began taking some singing lessons from Edna Bianchi, a rich-sounding soprano who had retired from a successful singing career in the 1920s to the 1940s, which included singing at the Metropolitan Opera. Vocal technique (breath support, placement, etc.), lots of scales and exercises, and into some fairly simple songs. I learned enough about reading music to be able to dope out the melodies of the songs she had me singing, but we never made an issue of reading music. And God knows, she was a more than qualified teacher!

A few years later I became actively interested in folk music, bought myself an inexpensive guitar, and had my girlfriend at the time teach me some chords. She knew how to read music, but we didn't even get into that. No, she did not claim to be a music teacher, she was just showing me chord positions. Later, I took some guitar lessons from a singer of folk songs who had a television show at the time. We never talked about reading music, beyond the fact that he had me learning songs out of a couple of song books, and by then I could puzzle out single line melodies without much difficulty.

I went on to take classical guitar lessons from a couple of different teachers, and since I had decided to make a career of singing traditional songs (this was before the Kingston Trio, so at the time, not everybody and his pet chicken was trying to do it), I took more voice lessons from George Hotchkiss Street, another retired opera singer. His voice as bass, similar to mine.

I also changed my college major to Music, studied at the University of Washington for three years, then moved to the Cornish School of the Arts, a conservatory, where I studied for another two years. I also took private music theory and composition lessons from Mildred Hunt Harris.

All of this is by way of assuring Josepp that I'm not just talking through my hat. I know whereof I speak.

I have had a fairly successful career as a singer of folk songs. Although not all that well known beyond the Pacific Northwest, I've done television, mostly educational television, sung many concerts in the area, sung at folk festivals, at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, and if not singing somewhere else, I had a regular gig in a local coffeehouse that paid me a fairly decent salary, not just a tip-basket. AND, during the weekdays and evenings, I taught guitar, both folk and beginners in classic, as well as classes of ten or a dozen students a couple of evenings a week.

And yes, I did teach some basic music theory. I don't remember any occasion when the matter of drawing a distinction between B# and C ever arose. As a teacher, I felt that there were things far more important than this sort of esoterica that it was important to get across to my pupils.

As to whether or not I am a competent teacher, I have quite a number of students who went on to perform professionally and some of them went on to teach as well.

I do not agree with the viewpoint that singers of folk songs should avoid musical training lest they lose their free and natural approach to folk music. That's just plain silly. Getting some musical training, including learning music theory, does not "limit you with a bunch of arbitrary rules" as I had some folkies try to warn me early on. It frees you by showing you what is possible! And being able to read music is an invaluable aid. I have a whole bookshelf full of song books and ballad collections that I can draw on for songs while many folk song enthusiasts I know who never learned to read music are limited to learning songs that they can listen to, either sung by other people, or from recordings.

But—

To declare someone an incompetent teacher because they somehow neglected to explain the delicate but earth-shaking distinction between B# and C natural, then march him out in the middle of the parade ground before the rest of the regiment, break his guitar across your knee, cut the buttons off his uniform, and march him around the compound in disgrace before drumming him out of the corps—or sending the lovely, sweet-voiced Claire to the guillotine for not explaining it to me when she was first showing me how to finger G, C, and D7 on my cheap little plywood guitar back in 1952—is, perhaps, a bit excessive!

Don Firth

P. S. C# or Bb

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: kendall
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 07:45 PM

Pointing out a teacher's mistake is ok; calling a fellow Mudcatter a fool is not.Especially when your own grammar is less than perfect. "Different than" is improper. It is "Different FROM".

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 07:11 PM

I've watched this merry go round run before. I think I'll mostly sit out this ride, and just throw peanuts at the riders as they coame past ...

QUOTE
Any decent "teacher" has the task of presenting new information in terms that the student can relate to something that the student already understands; and the teacher must avoid the attempt to teach technicalities incomprehensible in the context of the student's existing understanding before the student is prepared for, and capable of understanding, the new information. The lesson must fit the student's needs.

This does occasionally lead to incomplete understanding by the student, and an occasional technical error.
UNQUOTE

This is called the "Lies to Children" Educational Method.

QUOTE
"Quite obviously, josepp learned his music in the manner of a religion, and believes that only the "true faith" may be taught, and that everyone must know and believe his faith."

"I know where I'd place my bet.. Pupils are often less knowledgeable than their teachers, in fact it's a fairly common phenomenon. Why make unfair assumptions about a teacher you've never met, based on hearsay from a pupil who is obviously of relatively little learning? Could it perhaps be that you just wanted to show off your own {limited} knowledge? "
UNQUOTE

Yep, this is why they are called 'Trolls'... Truly, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing... and empty vessels make most sound.

QUOTE
////you seem to be obsessed with people being correct, and using correct terminology, none of which has anything to do with being a good teacher.////

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
UNQUOTE

Q. E. D.

:-)

I'll be back - ran out of peanuts.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Gurney
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 07:08 PM

Never mind the guitar, nor the concert harp, I want one of those BS harps that GSSchweik spoke of at the top there.
Just suit my playing style.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 06:58 PM

"the guitar is an equal tempered instrument"

Not if you play it properly.

A double-bass player I know said recently when asked what is the difference between Ab and G# said "on my instrument, an inch and a half".

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From:
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 06:57 PM

I second Noreen's accolade for JohninKansas.

I'm almost ashamed to have wasted so much time on this rot but John's summation made it worthwhile.

Jack

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 06:50 PM

The only music lesson my father ever gave me came one day when the sidewalks were iced over and I was going out and he said to me, C-sharp or you'll B-flat.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 06:36 PM

I remember a viola player in college saying that too.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Will Fly
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 06:21 PM

There is actually a subtle difference between, say, Eb and D#.

"What?" I hear you say, "how can this be?"

Well, I've heard it demonstrated on a violin. In certain tunes the intonation sounds more accurate sharpened or flattened ever so slightly to fit the key and the melody. Technically, there's no difference - in reality, there is.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 06:17 PM

On the concert harp, B# is a very different animal from C natural, and you can play them both at once if you want to, which is kind of fun. Likewise Cb & B natural, E# & F natural, Fb & E natural. You can do this with all the enharmonics.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 06:05 PM

JohnInKansas- a most excellent post.

I would like to nominate it for the Mudcat Post of the Year, if you will accept the honour.



Or I could buy you a pint, if I ever get the chance!

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 06:00 PM

So either the teacher is an idiot who shouldn't be in that job or the guy misunderstood him.

I know where I'd place my bet.. Pupils are often less knowledgeable than their teachers, in fact it's a fairly common phenomenon. Why make unfair assumptions about a teacher you've never met, based on hearsay from a pupil who is obviously of relatively little learning? Could it perhaps be that you just wanted to show off your own knowledge?

The proof of quality musicianship lies in practical demonstration, not in knowledge of musical theory. Which came first - music or the theoretical description of it? Which is ultimately more important?

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: gnu
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 05:29 PM

Ebbie... perhaps somewhat square but you got you got some well rounded edges.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 04:51 PM

Quite obviously, josepp learned his music in the manner of a religion, and believes that only the "true faith" may be taught, and that everyone must know and believe his faith.

To explain economics to a graduate student, he would start the lesson with the explanation that the elasticicy of the supply-demand curve is the partial derivative of the quantity demanded by the market with respect to the price set by the supply, just as Dr. Samuelson did on the first chapter of his widely acclaimed Economics textbook.

This "method" simply ignores that since the graduate student majored in philosopy and English literature, what (s)he really needs to know is "there are one hundred pennies in a dollar" since the immediate functional need is to be able to make change at the pub/tavern where the student finally found a first job. (The teacher must also recognize, in this cse, that the student is probably anticipating the opportunity to move out of his parents' home - at age 39 - and may not be thinking too clearly.)

Any decent "teacher" has the task of presenting new information in terms that the student can relate to something that the student already understands; and the teacher must avoid the attempt to teach technicalities incomprehensible in the context of the studen'ts existing understanding before the student is prepared for, and capable of understanding, the new information. The lesson must fit the student's needs.

This does occasionally lead to incomplete understanding by the student, and an occasional technical error.

A proper response to the student's statement would have been the simple reply that "technically there is a C# that is the enharmonic equivalent of the second semitone above C♭ on equal-tempered instruments." Then, after you've brought the student up to understanding of enharmonic substitutions, you might be able to demonstrate the mathematices of derivation of the numerical value of the coma so that student will comprehend when the equivalences are inappropriate and how much (or little) it matters in the kinds of performance of interest to that student.

Since a conversation of this sort, unless with one of person's own students, is unlikely to occur other than in a pub/tavern, understanding will demand (many?) more than one pint each, for both student and instructor. Depending on the quality of the brew, by the time the lesson ends they either will reach the point of believing they have achieved true understanding or there will be a pub riot, either of which - in some circles - is deemed part of a satisfactory lesson plan.

John

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: PHJim
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 04:28 PM

If someone has been taking lessons for three years, it might be confusing to indicate the idea of B#. I doubt a guitar player of three years is going to be reading music with B#s in it.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 04:20 PM

"If you play purely by ear, then of course all this is purely academic but if you play music in a situation where the norm is to play from written music then it is definitely of practical importance."

since most music is in equal temperament it is not of practical importance, it is of importance in some forms of classical harmony writing, as regards correct protocol,
it is important in other temperaments other than equal, but it bears no relationship to whether someone is a good teacher.
But since the guitar is an equal tempered instrument, the guitar teacher would have been correct in f he had said that on the guitar b sharp and c occupy the same fret, as do g# and a flat, so what you call them whilst you are playing is not important, because they are in effect the same bloody note, this is probably what he meant.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 04:17 PM

There is also B half-sharp. In the Arab system it both is and isn't "equivalent" to C half-flat!

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 04:09 PM

////you seem to be obsessed with people being correct, and using correct terminology, none of which has anything to do with being a good teacher.////

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Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Tootler
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 04:08 PM

Josepp is right, there is such a thing as B# and he is also right to criticise his friend's guitar teacher for not knowing the difference, or at least not pointing it out.

Of course it's always possible that his friend has mis-reported (or misunderstood) what his guitar teacher actually said. I suspect that may well be the case and before criticising the guitar teacher, that needs to be checked.

I agree that in most practical situations, there is no difference in sounding pitch between B# and C, nevertheless knowing that there is a difference does matter in a practical sense, especially if you play from written music at all because you might see it written down and you need to know what to play. I play recorder in a classical music ensemble and I come across B# from time to time. It's not particularly common but it is not by any means rare. If Josepp's friend is interested in playing classical guitar at all or ever becomes interested then it is essential that he knows what B# is.

To anticipate the other question that often comes up, namely "Why not write it as C?". It's all to do with the harmony in written music. If you are wanting to write a chord of G#maj, for example, you would write it as G# B# D# (ie a semitone above Gmaj). You could equally write Ab C Eb but that is an Ab chord and not G#. True, when both were played, they would sound the same, but which you would choose would depend on the harmonic progression. Whichever way you expressed that chord, writing it as G# C D# would not make sense as it would muddy the harmonic progression for someone looking at the score.

There are situations where B# and C are not the same. If you play a G#(Ab) chord on a keyboard tuned 1/4 comma meantone, believe me, it sounds horrible! In meantone temperaments, the enharmonic "equivalents" are not equivalent and you actually need different keys for both B# & C and also for Eb and D# so that you could get sweet sounding chords. This has been attempted in the past but the result was never really satisfactory so has not persisted.

If you play purely by ear, then of course all this is purely academic but if you play music in a situation where the norm is to play from written music then it is definitely of practical importance.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Mark Ross
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 04:07 PM

Pete Seeger once asked his father Charles, the composer and musicologist, when should someone learn to read music. Charles Seefer replied, 'When the know what kind of music they want to play."

I once heard Itzhak Perlman on NPR demonstrate the difference between B, Bsharp, Cflat, and C. Even a cheap radio I could hear the difference in the tones. In classical music I guess it makes a difference, but read Woody Guthrie on the distinction between a sliding finger fiddler and one who can drop his digit on the precise note.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 04:04 PM

you seem to be obsessed with people being correct, and using correct terminology, none of which has anything to do with being a good teacher.
A person may have all the correct qualifications, Possess a degree, be very knowledgeable, may understand that in other temperaments other than equal.. b sharp is different from c ... but still be a useless teacher.
playing and teaching music is not just about correct terminology , if it was we could programme a robot to teach it

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 03:58 PM

////"The Concert Harp; In the top position no pegs are in contact with the string and all notes are flat; thus the harp's native tuning is to the scale of C-flat major."////

Why, that can't be right!!!! There's no such thing as C-flat, only B!

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 03:46 PM

///josepp: there are chords that use double sharps and flats. The fact that someone knows or doesn`t know that is not sufficient reason to go off your rag.////

Once again, read this: When you are BEING PAID TO TEACH MUSIC, you are obliged to teach it correctly. When you tell people there is no such thing as a B-sharp, you are NOT teaching it correctly. It's no different than teaching someone that there is no E-string on a guitar. "So what's this one?" the person asks plucking the E. "Oh, that's the F-flat string." Is that teaching the guitar correctly in your opinion? Would you pay someone to teach you that? And do you think that student should, in turn, teach others that same line?


/////Because you said (and I quote again):
When I watch musicians that I respect play, they can all play straight off sheet music. That is how it should be. Anything less damages our culture

The quote from your post, put those two sentences together- did you not mean that? Sounded very like it to me./////

If we had no musicians in this country that could read music and read it well, our culture would be a shit heap. Listening to the Beatles is all well and good and the fact that they can't read music is all well and good. But if every musician was like that, it would NOT be all well and good. The guitarist I spoke of is great, but he can't teach anyone to play what he does. At best, he can hope someone will just pick it up like he did. In fact, I stopped using him for jam sessions because I need him to read and he can't read. Great guitar-player but I can't use him.

I might have great aptitude as an engineer but if I never went to college and got a degree in engineering, would you hire me to build a bridge? Especially if the math I use is not exactly correct?

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,999
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 03:21 PM

josepp: there are chords that use double sharps and flats. The fact that someone knows or doesn`t know that is not sufficient reason to go off your rag.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 03:21 PM

The best guitarist I ever played with can't read. What has that got to do with anything???

Because you said (and I quote again):
When I watch musicians that I respect play, they can all play straight off sheet music. That is how it should be. Anything less damages our culture

The quote from your post, put those two sentences together- did you not mean that? Sounded very like it to me.