Music Notation: Rule of 7

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: s&r
Date: 27 Aug 05 - 04:30 AM

What a perceptive comment Barbara - for me that sums up Mudcat. There are a number of contributors whose knowledge leaves me in awe.

Stu

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 10:21 PM

I'm constantly amazed at how much I don't know about things I didn't know I didn't know, and how much others do...

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Artful Codger
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 08:49 PM

Some random observations:

Yes, if you want to transpose a key up or down a semitone, you'll either be adding or subtracting 7 flats or sharps, which causes the key signature to shift from flats to sharps or vice versa (or to C), and the sum of the flats or sharps will always be 7. This is basic music theory.

Furthermore, there will always be one semitone-adjacent key which has the same staff letter and a legitimate key signature (no more than 7 sharps or flats), so you can transpose to that key "as written", except for translating accidentals. C is unique in being transposable to two adjacent keys without changing the root letter--C# (7 sharps) and Cb (7 flats)--, but who wants to use either? Otherwise, your choice is pretty much forced. For instance, D can be visually transposed to Db (5 flats), but not to D# (9 sharps--too many!)

The same trick applies to the minor keys and the other modes (eg., Dorian), though some pairings change--D minor (1 flat) must be paired with D#m (6 sharps) rather than Dbm (8 flats); compare with the example above. So it's not quite as easy as learning the pairings for major and using the same pairings for other modes.

Regarding key choices:
Capos are designed to work in conjunction with frets and flat keyboards; a violin has neither (though I'm sure some clever instrument-builders sell special capos which act as moveable bridges.)

I wouldn't say classical violinists eschew open strings, but rather that the nature of the music usually precludes using open strings. Vibrato is used extensively on sustained notes, and is impossible on open strings. An open note cannot easily be ornamented, except by grace notes or trills from above. Classical music uses far more modulation, parallel voicing and accidentals than in most fiddling.

On the other hand, as previous posters have mentioned, open strings come in mighty useful in fiddling, which makes extensive use of drone strings and the natural harmonics of the standard tuning. An open string also simplifies making position changes and ornaments on the next higher note (as on guitar). So for fiddlers, the use of open strings has more influence on key choices.

A number of instruments are quite limited in the keys--or should I say key signatures--they can play. A tinwhistle only really plays two keys easily. You can get them in most of the standard keys, but the ones for some keys are just too shrill, breath-robbing or clubby for serious use.

A hammered dulcimer is limited to the 3 or 4 keys for which it was designed. The keys always progress by 4ths, and only a handful of accidentals are available in each key (a byproduct of the diatonic notes in the related keys.)

An Anglo concertina is limited in the chords it can play in each direction--you'll often find an Anglo concertinist singing only in the key of C or G. (Where's my pistol?)

The English concertina is fully chromatic in both directions, but playing accidentals (on the outside rows) can be a bit of a trick, particularly when you have to chord two buttons with the same finger. If you transpose to a new key, you have to use an entirely different finger pattern, particularly if you go up or down a 2nd or 4th, when you have to switch hands/sides. Besides which, the generally available concertinas aren't quite as well-tempered as they ought to be--downright ill-tempered in some keys.

When I sing, I often use a much wider range than the melody itself spans. I find that if I shift the key by even a semitone, the song may become noticeably harder to sing. Or it may lose some of the deepness or lightness I wanted. When I can, I put a song into an "unusual" key, just so there is that distinction and mental shift from one song to the next. I wonder how many songs get written down in strange keys just because of personal peccadillos like this.

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Tootler
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 04:39 PM

Dunno about fiddle, but as a general rule, ... flat keys [are] easier to play on woodwinds and brass. This isn't a matter of mind-set, it's a matter of fingering.

It is true it is a matter of fingering, but the easiest keys to play in for woodwind, at least, tend to be those closest to written C. Many woodwind instruments are transposing instruments and the written key and the sounding key are different. The reason flat keys are often preferred is because a sounding flat key is written in a key closer to C. An obvious example is the Bb clarinet where playing a written scale of C major gives a sounding scale of Bb major.

I play recorder and the easiest key to play in, on a C recorder is G, followed by D and C. As you move away from these keys, either to more sharps or more flats you have to make use of cross fingerings which can be awkward.

Cross fingerings also affect the quality of the sound which may be a partial explanation of why different keys have different character - even if you are playing nominally in equal temperament.

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: s&r
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 04:01 PM

Barbara - the comma is a small frequency difference between a fifth in tempered tuning and a fifth calculated by Pythagoras. There are more complex definitions like this one and there are plenty more...

Stu

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: s&r
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 03:25 PM

No taboo on anything. Many folk styles use open strings as drones; without retuning, the keys in which open drones can be used are D G A. The fiddle has resonances which give some extra tone quality in these keys.

It's also true that many folk styles play many notes to a bow, and many players hold the fiddle at the elbow, and it's common to hold the bow halfway up the stick.

These are observations not rules of what should be.

Stu

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: dermod in salisbury
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 02:00 PM

Actually we are both right. D# has five sharps, but I forgot to mention the extra two sharp-sharps...my story and I am sticking to it.

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Mark Clark
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 12:32 PM

A fiddler can play any key using only stopped strings; the comma doesn't enter into it, nor the 'tempering'. Many folk styles (if not most) use open strings where available both for melody notes and/or drones. That's when B becomes problematical.

Okay, I can see that B might become problematical if open strings are being played. But I don't think bluegrass fiddle players use open strings when playing in B, that's why they don't have to hurt their heads while playing.

For some reason, I've been under the impression that classical violinists also eschew playing open strings. The open string has a slightly different tonality than a stopped string and they strive to effect the same tonality through an entire passage. Do I have this wrong?

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 12:19 PM

OK, reading it again I sort of see what you were trying to say but it is confusing to have written Ab (meaning the key of A flat major) twice when you were trying to demonstrate how to get to A major. It is also not completely accurate to say that a key signature of F# C# G# represents A major as it is also F# minor.

B becomes problematical

Doesn't need to be. I can't see why fiddling in 'folk style' should mean confining yourself to first position. If capos are 'permitted' on fretted instruments, why ever take any notice of a 'taboo' on moving up the fingerboard?

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: s&r
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 10:08 AM

CR - the reason for my post above was to (hopefully) demonstrate that the rule of seven is a natural consequence of using a seven note scale.

My post reads exactly as I intended: in Ab there are four flats and three natural notes. Move everything up one half-tone and you end up with four naturals and three sharps.

My hope was to add to Mary's understanding of the 'trick'.

A fiddler can play any key using only stopped strings; the comma doesn't enter into it, nor the 'tempering'. Many folk styles (if not most) use open strings where available both for melody notes and/or drones. That's when B becomes problematical.

Stu

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 07:33 AM

five sharps would be B, no?

Yes.   D# minor has 6. Db major has 5 flats though . . .

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 07:17 AM

Many interesting points here.

The mental arithmatic is usual for someone like me because I have limited experience in sight reading and first try to figure out what key I'm in ("gold dollars are ever bright" or "fat boys eat apple dumplings"). Then I can change to the new key and remember which notes are sharp or flat in that scale. The issue came up because I was in a trio, and we all needed to instantly transpose to the same key.

(Dermod, according to "gold dollars...", five sharps would be B, no?)

I don't understand the F#, comments. What's the comma?

As for key and mood, I definitely notice a different mood in some keys and remember a thread way back on the subject where many of us went into great detail on the subject.

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 07:00 AM

That reminds me of a session I once went to (never went back) where I was told: 'No we can't play that tune because it isn't in D'.

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: dermod in salisbury
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 06:38 AM

Is this rule of 7 really necessary? Without need for mental arithmetic, if a piece is in Db (5 flats) or D# (five sharps) simply forget the flats and sharps that do not appeal and play the music as if in D.   Same goes for any key. Generally, composers for string instruments selected the remoter keys because they did not want the resonant, or open string tones associated with the more usual keys, or because it results different possibilities for modulation.

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Pied Piper
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 06:10 AM

Hi CR, I'm self-taught and came late to reading music. It was quit an eye-opening discovery for me, and yes a lot of better site readers than me don't seem to know about it.

PP

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 05:57 AM

That's it PP, but doesn't everybody know this? And that it's - 3 from major to minor? Or am I the only child to have shown ingenuity only in laziness?

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Pied Piper
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 05:30 AM

I reed for GHB in A and often transpose tunes with a G tonality.
To go up 1 tone (G to A) just add 2 sharps (or subtract 2 Flats) and rewrite a tone higher. Sharps and flats act like + and - and cancel. Bb up one tone is 2b+2#=0, C and similarly to go down a tone subtract 2#(or add 2bs), E to D is 4#-2#=2#.

PP

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 05:09 AM

Sorry, Stu, dunno if I'm being excessively dim (it's been known) but - leaving aside the fact that you clearly intended to type A major rather than Ab major the second time i.e. F# C# G# - are you not just stating the bleedin' obvious when you say that to play a scale one semitone up (Ab to A) you must raise all the notes of that scale by one semitone?

I never thought of calling it anything like as fancy as 'Rule of 7' but remember quickly sussing as a small child that all you had to do was add or subtract 3 or 4 as necessary and safely ignore all that stuff called 'transposition' the music teacher was droning on about.

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: s&r
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 04:32 AM

Going back to the original post.

If you want to raise the key of Ab to A, all seven notes of the scale need to be raised one semitone. Four notes in Ab are flat - they become natural: three notes in Ab are natural - they become sharp. Because no note letters have been changed they remain on the same degree of the staff.

Stu

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 12:29 PM

Hmm. It occurs to me that there is another factor at work here. Once again, using the guitar as an example, playing chords in flat keys gets you into barre chords right away, but for scale passages, it shouldn't make that much difference. A classic or jazz guitarist learns various scale patterns, and what key a particular scale pattern is in depends on where on the fingerboard you start it. Since the fiddle doesn't play chords that often (occasional double-stops), I don't see that it should make too much difference. But then, not being a fiddle-player. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 12:17 PM

Dunno about fiddle, but as a general rule, sharp keys are easier to play on stringed instruments and flat keys easier to play on woodwinds and brass. This isn't a matter of mind-set, it's a matter of fingering. For example, with the guitar, the easiest keys to play in are C (no sharps or flats), G (1#), D (2#), A (3#), and E (4#). Going the other way on the circle of fifths, in F (1b) you're already into barre chords, and the more flats you add, the more barre chords you have to play.

'Course a capo solves all that.

One of the most difficult pieces in the classic guitar repertoire is Fernando Sor's Etude in Bb (2 flats--in the folio of 20 Sor studies that Segovia worked out the fingering for). Barre chords all the way. Beautiful, but a bitch to play. (No, I can't play it. I get about six measures into the thing and my fingers fall off!).

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Mark Clark
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 11:39 AM

… when you move to the dominant chord in B, you are playing in F#, which, on an untempered instrument (as the violin is) is a really problematic pitch--owing to the comma--and building a dominant scale on it is, most likely, an iffy proposition at best--

That's what surprised me. Dan, the classically trained and accomplished violinist, was thinking in those terms and mentally dealing with the added difficulty. But the highly-skilled bluegrass fiddlers I know (with no classical training or academic knowledge of theory) wouldn't know any of that and wouldn't be thinking in those terms. They're probably just playing higher on the neck using A fingerings or lower using C fingerings. They may use B-specific fingerings as well but I'm sure they aren't thinking about sharps and flats and how to build a dominant scale on an untempered instrument. If you mentioned that to them they'd just give you a blank stare and say "huh?"

But they seem to have no more difficulty playing in B than in A or D.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 08:09 AM

The idea of scales having 'moods' might have had some currency in days of playing on perfect tuned instruments tuned to a C scale, but now with even temperment, I can't tell a damn between scales.

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: M.Ted
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 01:05 AM

B is a difficult key for fiddlers--I have heard others mention it--I don't imagine that it was a difficult challenge for Dan to understand what was going on theoretically--I think that it has to do with the problems related to the fact that when you move to the dominant chord in B, you are playing in F#, which, on an untempered instrument (as the violin is) is a really problematic pitch--owing to the comma--and building a dominant scale on it is, most likely, an iffy proposition at best--

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Mark Clark
Date: 25 Aug 05 - 12:09 AM

I hadn't heard the Rule of 7 but it makes sense. I'll try to remember it.

But this thread is interesting to me for another reason. Earlier this year I met a Minneapolis fiddler named Dan Radford who plays with a bluegrass band called Timbre Junction. Dan is a great musician, now in his 70s, who I'm told spent years as a violinist in the Minneapolis Symphany Orchestra, obviously classically trained.

We got into a late-night jam and I was pitching a fair number of tunes in B and Dan remarked that B was a tough key in which to play (tough is a relative term here). I was a little surprised by his remark and asked why. He said it was because B has five sharps.

I know quite a few skilled bluegrass fiddlers and none has ever complained about B or any other key and yet I'm sure that Dan understands more of music theory than any of the bluegrass fiddlers I know. Then it occured to me that Dan, because of his classical training, was always thinking about sharps and flats; it was the way his mind worked. Of course most working bluegrass fiddlers don't think about those at all, they just move their arsenel of scales and riffs up or down the neck as needed. Dan was having to work a lot harder because he actually understood, theoretically, what he was playing all the time. Dan wasn't reading a score but he must have been constructing a mental score as he played, even if he hadn't played the song before.

It had never occured to me that musicians heads could work that way.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 11:22 PM

********thread drift************

Many composers felt quite strongly about key signatures. I think Karl Haas had a program about the emotional connotations of various keys. The main one I remember is the key of F is considered the Pastorale Key. (Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony, Handel's piece just before "He Shall Feed His Flock" etc.)

Several "Spring" songs have lots of sharps, I'm thinking Grieg here. I'll have to look these up, I've forgotten most of them.

Leonard Bernstein used to tune the NY Philharmonic slightly sharp for a "bright" sound. ;-)

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 11:14 PM

I always just changed 3 sharps to 4 flats because it was easier to play in that key - don't know why. Also, many people feel it's easier to sing in a lower key, albeit only slightly lower. ;-) As best I remember, you had to watch out for accidentals (a cancelation of the original sharp) when they occurred in the music you were reading.

I didn't know 4 sharps would transpose to 3 flats - I guess it just never came up. (probably not common in hymnals whereas 3 sharps is fairly common) But I do know that 6 sharps is easier to play than 3 sharps - once again, not sure why.

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Raedwulf
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 02:30 PM

Yes, this works. The net effect is to shift *everything* one semi-tone. Ab = A, Bb = B, C = C#, Db = D, Eb = E, F = F#, G = G#. The salient point here is that all regular major/minor keys contain only 7 notes (the octave being a doubling of the root).

The rule might be slightly better quoted as "Sharps + Flats = 7" e.g. Ab (4 flats) = A (3 sharps); G (1 sharp) = Gb (6 flats), which is the same as saying F (1 flat) = F# (6 sharps). Only goes to show that some composers want shooting! :-/

;-)

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: M.Ted
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 02:35 AM

something in a proper key for anything, in a couple minutes--

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: M.Ted
Date: 24 Aug 05 - 02:34 AM

Back when I used to play with people who had to read from music, I was aware of quite a number of "squint tricks" that horn and reed players had to use to read our concert pitch arrangements--sadly, I've forgotten most of them(and my ability to sight read has gone soft from lack of practice).   These days, with the Finale, it is a simple trick to pop off

Subject: RE: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Snuffy
Date: 23 Aug 05 - 05:11 PM

I have a hymnal with the tune Londonderry (a.k.a. Danny Boy) in Db - that's FIVE flats. But you could play it straight from the music as if it was ordinary D (2 sharps).

Same thing works if you change a B(#####) to Bb(bb) - just play the written dots, but a semitone higher or lower.

Subject: Music Notation: Rule of 7
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 23 Aug 05 - 04:05 PM

Has anyone heard of this? I think it goes like this:

If you have music in (e.g.) the key of Ab (4 flats) and would like to play in an easier key, you can subtract the number of flats from 7 and play the piece AS WRITTEN as if it were in the key of 3 sharps, or A major, in this case. Similarly, Eb (3 flats) subtracted from 7 would translate easily to E major (4 sharps). You would need to remember what's supposed to be sharp in your new key, of course.

This came up when I was asked to play fiddle at a church service to accompany a bass and piano, using the church hymnal. Being a perennial beginner, I had trouble with some of the keys with lots of flats and sharps. The pianist (the music director) told me about the "Rule of 7" and it went very well. It was especially useful to me as a simple fiddler, being able to go to good fiddle keys on some of those unfamiliar hymns, although the congregation probably wondered why they had to stretch to reach some of the notes, no doubt.

The music director is no longer around to ask, and I wonder if I remember it correctly. I just tried out Eb and Ab, but can't find any music in other heavily flatted or sharped keys to verify the rule.

Hey, I just noticed that the key stays the same with the "Rule of 7" while it's just the symbol -flat or sharp- that changes.

Is this a well-kept secret? Or am I the only one who didn't know this before?