The Chromatic Scale (2)

🛑 We need to STOP HERE for a moment and talk about rules. 🛑

The term used for 1 key having 2 different names is ENHARMONIC. Because of this fact we need to know what name to use in certain situations.

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So, in order to analyze and speak about music sensibly and accurately, some rules need to be in place. These rules are what we know from school as music theory. Of course in our program we call it Music Fact because it's not a theory at all, the rules never change, thus it is fact.

Let's add on to what we have already learned from the chromatic scale.

When we discussed the C chromatic scale, it was stated that you can use either sharps ♯ or flats ♭, or even both and it did not matter in its creation. That is a true statement. A musician who is a good sight reader would have no problem reading and playing it.

But mixing the sharps and flats creates one problem. Mixing does not enable us a way to analyze and speak about music sensibly.

Let's apply some fact.

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The formula for the chromatic scale is: (H = Half Step) H H H H H H H H H H H H (12 halfsteps).

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The root note is always the root note. In any scale, the root note (it's letter name) can only be used once.

Let's break that down. Here's our piano.

We start with our alphabet. Starting on C the seven (7) letters are:

We also know the Chromatic scale has 12 notes.

So now we need to make sense of things.

We now know that the root (the letter C in this example) can only be used once.

We have a choice. The next note can either be called C♯ or D♭.

So if we can't use the root "C" again, the next note has to be some type of "D"

Our choice for the second note then has to be "D♭".

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If you start with sharps (♯) continue using sharps. If you start with flats (♭) continue using flats.

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