Saturday, May 9, 2009

Some musical notes...bad pun I know

Couple of rules..

Order of sharps in the sharp key sigs...

F,C,G,D,A,E,B

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The key sig is a half tone above the last sharp in the order


So the key sigs are

G D A E B F# C#

In the flat key sigs the order of flats is

B,E,A,D,G,C,F

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Notice that the order of flats is just the order of sharps reversed. This allows an "internal" check when you are writing key sigs

In the flat key sigs the key is the flat of the note immediately before the last note in the order. This does not apply for the first flattened note (Bb), where the key is F.

The order of the key sigs, from one flat to seven flats is

F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb

The scale can be constructed from the key sig by the rule..

whole step, whole step, half step, whole step , whole step , whole step, half step