Is Cb the same note as B?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 พ.ค. 2024
- Let's ARGUE!
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0:00 Intro
3:05 Cb vs B Tune
4:10 All About Functions
6:29 Why Cb is a different pitch from B
10:25 Sensitivity to difference
13:02 Music can be complicated
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Peace,
Adam
My music teacher in college simply said “call them enharmonic equivalents so you can sidestep the entire discussion.” He was wise beyond his years
but what if I _really_ feel like fighting someone today?
I was told something similar by my music teacher in middle school. That answer sat well with me despite being the argumentive type
What kind of woke shit is that .
@@santosmadrigal3702 ???
@@joshkary5040 I know all the notes . Is it just me or does everyone know the ABC'S and Twinkle twinkle little star are the same song .
I appreciate how you manage to be so educational and so annoying at the same time. love you.
truly a short definition of this man whole career
Truly an artist at heart, lol
@Morris X Official I mean hey, sometimes you gotta ask annoying questions to get people thinkin'
@Morris X Official recognize the full worth of.
"she feels that he does not appreciate her"
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understand (a situation) fully; recognize the full implications of.
"they failed to appreciate the pressure he was under"
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Feedback
@Morris X Official my pleasure! Let me know if you need anything else, pretty bored working from home today. Lots of people starting to take time off. Do you have any snow? What are conditions like where yku live? Stay warm!
As a harpist, for me Cb and B are even played on different strings and I have a way easier time using enharmonics when the notes are written as such on the paper as well. :)
How about Cb and B#?
@@FireRupee Two different strings as well and yes - this time the lower strings would have a higher pitch. :) Same goes for E# and Fb.
@@Zet237yt Perfectly balanced, AS ALL STRINGS SHOULD BE.
@@FireRupee C flat is equivalent to C Sharp I guess going by the major 3rd system
That is a dangerous way to call yourself lmao
This is not really a complicated question, but it has two answers. One: Cb and B are the same pitch in equal temperament, but have different harmonic functions in tonal music. Two: Cb and B have different pitches in many tunings other than equal temperament.
This is the simple and correct answer.
Thanks! I was wondering why this needs to be a 15 minute video. Now I can stop watching after 40 seconds.
@@Brinta3 Well, the video did supply more details.
Now I am sincerely curious, because I have never heard any musical piece from anywhere in the world that is not in equal temperament. If there is one, please tell me because I'm really curious how it would sound.
@@tuppelkneinhoftsnaak There's lots of music worldwide that is not tuned to 12TET- for instance, all Balinese gamelan music. From the European tradition, everything before about 1800 was not tuned in equal temperament at the time. Here's an example: th-cam.com/video/7GhAuZH6phs/w-d-xo.html
As a trombonist, the difference between Cb and B makes more sense to me than it probably does for someone coming from (say) a piano background. Vibes based!
Same here as a violinist. I can totally feel the difference between notes like that (and even ones that are even more "the same" such as A# vs Bb) but just the slightest difference in the angle of my finger (not even the placement, the angle) can make the note feel more like a A# vs a Bb
Also a trombonist. I always practice with a pitch reference. Feels good to hear correct pitches in context.
Yes... sounds right.
Also a trombonist here - just wanted to add that if I see an A# in a piece of music, there's a high chance I'm going to instinctively play it in 5th position instead of 1st, because the spelling of that note implies that I'm probably going to play a B natural soon. If I see a Bb, I'm probably going to play it in 1st position. Spelling matters, it gives performers clues as to what to expect or gives context to what others might be playing.
As a pianist who later learned the trombone, I disagree.
Enharmonics appeared everywhere in my music in order to keep consistency in complex key signatures
Yes. *sees video length* …oh. Oh no
In regards to this topic. Yes lol
From an artist’s background, this feels like how grey-yellow acts when painted over a skin color (and other weird context based colors). You would never look at it and say that it looked grey yellow - you say it’s blue. But over a purely white background, it looks grey yellow. You’d never put down grey yellow on a white background when you want blue, but you do it when you want blue on skin tones. They’re technically the same exact on the color wheel, but it depends entirely on context how that color looks within the piece.
You said what I was thinking.
I spent the video working hard to wrap my mind around this concept, and I got it at the end, but your analogy was far easier to understand.
That is for all colours. All colours are affected by their context, and colour theory tells us the effect of using a certain colour on a certain context
Likewise, music theory gives two markings for the same pitch since context (the scale used) matters for how someone will perceive those notes. Which is why music theory calls them enharmonic equivalents (same pitch, different mark) instead of outright equal notes
Equal notes are noted the same. The answer is in the question, an easy no
I want a full version of the B vs C♭ tune it was so beautiful 😍
just listen to creep by radiohead?
@@Stuff-is-coolor listening to literally any rhythm changes song and getting told to be told to listen to I got rhythm. Jazz would break.
So here's a quick summary: there is NO DIFFERENCE between B and Cb for a piano. Thanks!
emphasis on “for a piano”
... but the pianist would play it differently
Did we watch the same video?
That's the same as saying red and blue are the same for colourblind people. Pianos are inherently tuned wrong
A. Not all music is played on the piano
B. Notes will be treated differently (dynamics, articulation, trill, melisma etc) based on their harmonic function
C. NOT ALL MUSIC IS PLAYED ON THE PIANO
You starting your video description with "LET'S ARGUE!" had me expecting the appearance of a certain bespectacled melon man
No bass solo, downvoted
Feeling a strong 8 to a light 9 on this reference.
@@slonk420 he did do a bass solo, just not at the beginning of the video
@@ryan11hawk Bruh, I'm high and I turned off the video after I saw my opinion repeated (different keys have different notations and so they're different). Just like a Fantano video, I hear my opinion, I get super smug and I turn it off 😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹
I'm gonna watch it later tho
Unlike with Fantano videos😹😹😹
Only real Gs remember when Adam was a melon too
This always reminds me of the time I was stuck in detention and decided to calculate note frequencies. Knowing that an octave is 2 tines the frequency of the root, and that a perfect fifth is 1.5 times the root, I started at A440, multiplied by 1.5 twelve times, then divided by 2 seven times. I got 446 and a lot of places after the decimal. I assumed I must've missed a keystroke or something, and moved on. Only years later, when I learned about different temperaments, did I realize that I was correct all along, and nobody told me it shouldn't work out to begin with.
I only had detention once, but l loved it! A whole hour to read in quiet instead of trying to drown out the noise of a house full of people! The teacher wanted to leave but l didn't!
For the octave you ar right!! Exactly twice the frequency. The fifth however, is not exactly 1.5, it is approximately 1.4983, which is close, but just not it.
At least it should still work in different temperaments, but then you will use different values. Decimal approximations are indeed not the way to go, because the human ear is logarithmic for all intends and purposes.
@@tuppelkneinhoftsnaak The fifth ideally, is exactly 1.5 times the frequency of the previous note. But, because (3/2)^12 isn't exactly a power of 2, we have to make compromises to assign frequencies to notes, which results in about a 1% error. The compromise we make with equal temperament is to prioritize the octave being exactly a doubling in frequency, and distribute the rounding error equally to all intervals.
Some temperaments prioritize the first few fifths from the base note, and put the error in all the less common notes played in that key.
the notes are like identical twins. They look and sound the same but they have different personalities, different names, different backstories, and different time births. The note depends on the context of the key. If the first twin was born first (B) they will probably end up being even the tiniest bit taller, while the second twin (Cb) will probably end up being the tiniest bit shorter. Different notes in context, same notes when heard.
How are they the same when it is noted differently every time?
For a singer, for a violinist, for any instrument where the player gets to choose the actual pitch, they might be different.
They are, just like F# and Gb
@@zetmoon f# and g# are different on every instrument ;-P
@@brdrnda3805 my bad
@@zetmoon no you were correct . F sharp and gflat sound the same on the piano
@@cogforreal5952 I corrected my post….
My favorite scale is C Major, but with every note spelled as C. Root=C, 2=C double sharp, 3=C quadruple sharp, 4=C quintuple sharp, 5=C septuple sharp, 6=C nonuple sharp, 7=C undecuple sharp, 8=duodecuple sharp.
Modern theory really overcomplicates things when you find out that everything is in C if you add enough accidentals to your frame of mind.
Seriously though, Music Theory is descriptive, not prescriptive. Language is for communicating, and spelling C flat in the wrong context is a lesser of the same sort of failing as trying to read a C quintuple flat first inversion add 13
Yeah this is the smart and well explained version of the grumpy feeling this video gave me.
How about instead of sharps and flats spell it with prime factors
C=C, D=C×3²÷2³, E=C×5÷2², F=C×2²÷3, G=C×3÷2, A=C×5÷3, B=C×3×5÷2³
This will make intervals just like just ratios, major third is 5÷4, minor third is 6÷5, etc.
Then for meantone use the invariant 3⁴÷2⁴÷5=1, so we can express 5 with 3⁴÷2⁴ and have
C=C, D=C×3²÷2³, E=C×3⁴÷2⁶, F=C×2²÷3, G=C×3÷2, A=C×3³÷2⁴, B=C×3⁵÷2⁷, sharp=3⁷÷2¹¹, flat=2¹¹÷3⁷
This makes the circle of fifths the amount of factors of 3 that you have, with 2 being octave.
For quarter comma meantone assume the exact value of 3 as 5^(1÷4)×2, and for equal temperament assume the exact value of 3 as 2^(19÷12) (so 5 becomes 2^(28÷12)).
Congratulations, you've just invented tabs! G is just an E with 3 sharps -> E-| - - 3 - -
@@spkbri 😂
@@spkbri oh yeah. It’s all coming together.
I have a pet theory that one of the reasons people like (real) string sections and lots of harmony vocals is because, unless they've been autotuned to death, those captured performances are going to stray away from gridded equal temperament intonation in a way that sounds instinctively sweeter.
You're correct. I'm a violinist with experience playing in orchestras. When we're doing what we are supposed to, we hear the intonation of the whole group and adjust intervals so that chords sounds nearly perfect -- fifths, thirds etc match to the harmonic series much better than autotune (or any kind of equal temper instrument) can achieve.
Set LFO to free running and either sine or sample and hold. add 0.3 pitch as modulation.
Sweetness, electronically.
Who would dare to autotune a string section?
@@MongerOfStrings8222 These days, there are people who will autotune anything.
Now. Is B# the same as C?
Nope. Where Cb and B aren't the same, neither are those two. Why would D# and Eb be the same, when they're not, right?
If I sing Cb my Jack Russell howls in B. The resolution is in tickling his belly and give him a treat.
Your Jack Russell needs more music theory lessons from Adam so the can learn to tune his howls to suit your moods...
I’m sure Adam says this but “to”, “two” and “too” all sound the same, but they function differently.
Also, a new Don Draper “nostalgia” right before Christmas. Perfect.
Or I think,, "row" (row a boat) and "row" (row and column). Looks the same, sounds the same, but means different.
But in Adam there are two A's, they have a different sound but they are the same letter.
I always hear people say this and it sounds strange to me. Two and too I pronounce the same, but not “to”. If I say out loud “one, two, three,” that sounds different than “one to three.”
@@ericeaton2386 "To" actually has two pronunciations, stressed and unstressed, while "two" and "too" each only have one. In your example ("one to three") the "to" is unstressed therefore it's pronounced with a schwa instead of an "oo" sound.
@@ericeaton2386 An example of a stressed "to" would be the one in "I'd love to!"
As a violinist i "justify" notes fairly regularly to get them in better tune. As a fiddler i manipulate pitches on a microtonal level all the time, particularly when i flat a note a tiny bit more in order to "blue it" more. I don't do most of these manipulations consciously: i just hear and tweak in real time
"...aspires upwardly..." As a non-musician I don't understand most of what Adam Neely says, but do enjoy his channel quite a lot. He possesses the vocabulary, word choices and combinations that keep you engaged, like a well written poem as you search for the deeply embedded nuggets folded into its many layers. And if I find just a nugget or three among the many, it's well worth the listen.
It's kind of pretentious, it essentially just means you unconciously expect it to lead upwards. Try playing a c major scale, you'll notice that the "yearns" to resolve to C.
Yes. End of story.
No. End of story.
Maybe. End of story.
It always depends on the tuning of the chord, at least in orchestral playing. Why is this B written as Cb? There's a reason for it (or should be).
@@Nice_Fella yes but also no
End of Story
cflat more like cbat
I used to sing in a VERY good chamber chorus, in which I learned great methods for tuning chords in a vocal ensemble. In a four-voice triad with a doubled root, we'd start by having the two parts singing the octave sing and hold their notes until they "locked in" to tune (hard to describe, but you know it when you feel it). Next , the part singing the fifth would come in and hold it until that locked in. Finally, the part singing the third would enter, and we'd all hold our notes until the whole chord locked in. When done this way, enharmonics in the context of different chords are certainly different pitches.
Good point. I was also confused by this aspect, until I did the math and realized that "shoehorning" natural sounds into a well tempered scale (with 12 semitones per octave, over multiple octaves), requires deviations from natural harmonics. However, instruments that don't have keys or frets (voice included) are not constrained to the well tempered frequencies list; therefore they can "re-tune on the fly", based on natural harmonics. When that's done properly, sounds "lock in" as you called it, giving a cappella performances that unique sound that many musical instruments just cannot replicate.
Yeah, I remember when I played the viola the notes would be slightly different once I got good enough, because none of the instruments were locked in to equal temperament the better players would play in true temperament without noticing.
@@Mike_Rogge even in a solo piece the pitches can still change based on the harmonic context. Even when staying within the same key.
PROOF
Cb=B#
And does
B#=B
You're tuning your harmonics to each other and locking into that. Every 'section' does this - brass, winds, strings. The better you are, the faster you sync. And without other sections as context, you sing a 'purer' scale, your fifths are likely exact 3/2 ratio, not twelfth-root-of-two based.. It's all subconscious, when the orchestra gather, the differences resolve into divinity.
Excellent video. Strong, well-reasoned argument. As a retired conductor / choir director, I can affirm that many of us in those professions will use the fixed piano tones as a “starting point” when beginning to rehearse a piece. In the case of pieces which are ultimately to be sung A cappella (or with infinitely tunable instruments), I would abandon the piano (or other keyboard instrument) as soon as the choir was sufficiently familiar with their parts so that I could properly tune the harmonies. Once the singers had the piece memorized, I’d take the sheet music away (to keep their eyes from confusing their brains). Finally, at the performance, I’d raise the singers’ starting pitches by a half tone. Using those three steps, I always got a perfectly tuned piece. (Raising the piece by a half tone caused the singers to have to “work” a tiny bit harder than usual and resulted in a performance that never - and I do mean never - ended flatter nor sharper than was intended.)
The question of Cb being the same as B perfectly graphs to the meme with the wojaks on the IQ curve. On the far left, there's "Of course they aren't the same note, you write them differently." Then in the middle there's "They're the same note, they have the same pitch." Lastly on the far right, there's "They aren't the same not because you write them differently (so they have different functions/different references for tuning)."
Funny that I don’t usually think I’m far right, but here I would place myself on your rubric.
midwit
You should switch right and left around, makes more sense that way
@@jonasmartinsen3439 no, the left side is low iq and right side is high iq
Actually even after OP edited it, and regardless of either way you put the left or right of the graph, one is the succinct way of saying it, "Of course they aren't the same note, you write them differently." The other way removes a couple words and adds one word, because, suddenly it's different now: ""They aren't the same not because you write them differently".
And then OP put in a bunch of implied apparently telepathy that happens. And the 'implied telepathy' here in parenthesis, is the smug asshat way of having to always be right, because gosh dern gee willickers, you paid for that rubber stamped music degree, didn't you?
I like to think of this in the same way as homophones. Right and write sound the same when spoken, but they have different meanings and definitely should not be used interchangeably. Similarly, Cb and B sound the same when played on an instrument but logically you would not use B if you wrote a piece in Gb major. It all depends on context in my opinion.
Exactly!
It's like reading the sentence "I eight sum stake four dinner" vs reading "I ate some steak for dinner".
If you're the one reading, the first one probably makes no sense to you since it makes no sense semantically; you'll likely have some difficulty in making it sound natural and giving it the proper inflection, as opposed to the second one.
But to someone hearing you they'll probably sound the same
The actual *hidden* assumption of those who argue that they are the same is: "A note is solely determined by its sound." Or more boldly, "The art of music is only concerned with sound." But this is far from the case.
That makes a lot of cents.
@@ThisIsATH-camAccountAsd This is an extremely good comparison that communicates the idea very very well. It's not so much that Cb and B sound different, but they are used in different contexts, and that matters.
If you said "write" instead of "right" verbally, they are the same (excluding context). If music is sound, then they're the same note. Similarly, if words are sound, then homophones are the same word. Obviously, when you try to translate the sound onto paper, you're going to need the context clues of the surrounding material to write the correct word/note.
14:04 “This feature has been thoroughly playtested.” ⭐️
This issue comes up in pure math a lot. Two things look locally the same but start to become more obviously different as you move into other contexts (e.g. transposing between keys). Modern math has a bunch of tools to keep track of this information (like, "is this line just a line, or is it actually a triangle that happens to have been flattened from our current perspective?")
Best video in a long time. Glad to see Adam returning to his music theory roots.
I like that audience insert, grey scale adam is way less antagonistic this time!
Also, I just yesterday had this discussion with a good friend of mine. She is a classical trained clarinetist while im a more or less selftaught guitarist. My point was that I understand why the distinction is made, but as a less experienced musician, it causes way less mental overhead for me to just regard the same pitches on my instrument as the same note. I can be more rigorous in my nomenclature once i make better music xD
That is a luxury you can afford because tabulature toddler and chord symbols largely dodge this distinction. When learning to properly read standard notation, you'll notice fairly quickly that "correctly spelled" sheet music can help greatly in thinking less while sight reading.
I'm just letting you know dude, you're really going to want to internalize "one per letter per scale" as early as possible, BEFORE it becomes directly relevant to what you're trying to do. This will save you huge amounts of angst in terms of unlearning bad habits down the road.
As a classical saxophonist (frequently dogged on by both jazz and classical musicians) it really depends on what format you're using to communicate musical ideas. My partner is an electric bassist in an indi/pop-ish band, and in that context doesn't have much use for this kind of distinction. He's an extremely skilled musician, and almost always learns songs aurally, it's just faster and more effective. On the other hand, I read almost all the music I play, as learning it aurally and having it all memorised just isn't practical. I come across Cb's surprisingly often, and they just don't bother me anymore, as it's just how a note is correctly spelled in certain contexts.
Anyway, in conclusion, you can be an excellent & skilled musician regardless, it just depends on how you want to engage with music. This whole argument is a waste of time imo, we should all be practicing!
Meanwhile I don't even thinking about note/chord name while I'm playing, my brain just too slow to do something like that...
P.S. Now I'm thinking about it... Actually most of the time I don't even thinking about the note name while writing music... It's very common for me to write music without knowing what key and what chords that I used... And only later when I analyze it then I know what key I'm in and what chords that I used...
Better music doesn't need better nomenclature. There are mountains of fantastic music written by people who couldn't even read sheet music.
Excited to watch this one!
When I published the monograph of the first Siegel Harmonic I sort of had a similar question because my thesis/conclusion was "That a new musical phenomenon known as Siegel Harmonics has been discovered creating a foundation for future research into capabilities, specifics, and ability to replicate across additional
string instrumentation.", and I had to be very cautious about the wording.
Since it was a groundbreaking study I wanted to make it broad enough that my conclusion would remain valid if new research was done which altered the details of the study. More importantly concerning Adam's video I had to recognize the difference between a: note, a frequency, and a musical phenomenon. A note is the notation of the sound and is subjective, thus Cb v B. A frequency is the actual sound according to an objective standard. A musical phenomenon is the concept that the frequency is a note produced by a specific technique.
At least that was my mental break down on it. Here is a video with my most recent research: th-cam.com/video/DndL8aNWu20/w-d-xo.html
When I sang in the opera chorus, a few decades ago, we sang The Execution of Stepan Razin by Shostakovich. We had to sing an F an F# and a Gb consecutively. The maestro who was Russian and who had known Shostakovich personally, insisted we sang the Gb slightly higher than the F#. He said that the strings would do it and if we tried to sing both notes exactly the same, we would sound off key. So we did as best we could.
To summarise:
• Same pitch (equal tempered tuning)
• Different notes (spellings)
• Different aesthetic and technical functions
But also different pitches in just temperament tuning, which is (unintentionally or intentionally, depending on the context) used in a fair amount of musical contexts!
@@mandobrownie It's weird to talk about "just intonation" as if it were a well-defined thing though. You need some starting pitch, like A 440 to base the rest of the notes on. And then how you get to the other notes changes what frequency you get.
@@wardm4 Totally agree with that you're saying. Just wanted to contrast with equal temperament systems
Point: For those who didn't know...On today's modern (double-action) pedal harp, Cb and B are played using different strings. So, in a practical sense to us harpists, the difference matters.
Counter-Point: We harpists use enharmonics all the time. Need a B, but the B-pedal is in the flat position? Play a Cb instead.
Harp Bonus: This difference is what creates the glissando that everyone hears when they think of the harp. A C-major glissando is really B#-C-D-E-Fb-G-A-B# (etc.). It is 7 strings producing 5 pitches.
Now I need a pedal steel harp. Let’s make it happen!
You can sometimes produce a mere four pitches as you get away from C major. C♯ D♭ E♯ F♮ G♯ A♭, and you could even pedal around on the B string as a sort of line cliché, the "My Funny Valentine" 1 ♮7 ♭7 6 passage.
This might even be a reason for a composer to deliberately pick a distant key.
Another amazing video. Thank you 1000x over for your patient explanation of dense theoretical topics 🤘🏽
Before I watch the video, I have to say I played this piece for sax called caprice en forme de valse a while back. Theres a section where you had Ebs and D#s resolving to their respective Ds and Es. Although I knew they were the same pitch, it almost didn’t sound like it purely because one is going down and the other up. I liked to think of it as a musical illusion. Thus my conclusion is that they’re the same pitch, they ultimately can serve different functions. Thus aren’t the same note
Adam: "One fundamental standard is that every letter name must be present in alphabetical order" Germans: C D E F G A H C
By the way: H flat it called B then so clearly: Not the same!
Same thing in Finland and it hurts my soul
@@thedave4369 Indeed. So a Cb is indeed an H, fight me!
@@HaxxTu Germany, the Scandic and the Slavic countries all use this convention.
As someone who plays a lot of 31TET, my immediate reaction was "no they're not!" 😂
That was the best TH-cam video I’ve ever seen. Excellent analysis and explanation. Bravo and thank you.
adam is the one human who entertains the intrusive anxious thoughts i have surrounding music all day
As a saxophone player, this resonates with A# vs Bb. Yes on the instrument, they sound the same, but most times beginners are taught the two different fingerings due to the way they most commonly resolve. So one fingering suits flat keys “Like transitioning from Ab to Bb” and the other suits sharp keys “Like the resolution of A# to B” .
I remember annoying one of my teachers when I first noticed the various possible alternate fingerings, and to amuse myself I’d alternate between them for no reason, and she’d be all “noo bad habits”
There are also situations where different fingerings for what should be the same note will be slightly different. Not by anything near a half step, but enough that it can make a difference in an ensemble: Fingering 1 may be more in tune than fingering 2
Cb and B are the same if the perfect fifth is exactly 700 cents in size. If it is less than 700¢, B is lower; if it is greater than 700¢, B is higher.
And then you learn how to play your F# major scale in thirds, and you completely unlearn any distinction between the two fingerings as you fight to survive
@@michaelmcleod6203 hahahahhaa yes you do whatever you have to do. Just dont play A or E natural.
As someone who sings A Capella (barbershop style) music I am aware of the interesting complications of leaving a tempered music system to lock in the pure overtones which results in requiring to shift the note up or down depending on the intervals created by the notes around it (which when done right results in overlapping overtones and the appearance of an additional voice). The tempered piano is a compromise that allows someone to play in any key, but not all instruments (voice, violins) are strictly tempered.
I forgot how much I love your analyses. Thorough and awesome, thanks!
"When you're more experienced, it will make sense" ... exactly!
I was told it depends on context, but never understood it. Now that I know more than 12TET, it makes sense to me.
I'm still a simple man, playing guitar and bass in 12TET, but it's still valuable to know. A tiny bend can make all the difference with harmonies
I get what you are trying to do with that language comparison, but I think a more relevant analogy is the difference between the same letters in different words. Like the e in "vice" and "wed." The _same_ letter with different functions. Those different functions don't make the letters different. Just like how the same pitch with different functions doesn't change the qualities of that pitch. Hell, the argument you make has more to do with the quirks of even temperament than the arbitrary names we give sounds. If you were to respell the D scale as E-double-flat for the purposes of spelling B as C-flat, just changing the name of the tone does not change how it functions. You are perceiving how C-flat functions in the limited amount of keys where you are actually likely to see it in music.
I and Y oftentimes made the exact same sound. Are they the same letter?
Gif and jiff are pronounced the same, so have two letters that sounds the same, therefore g = j? Stop trying to hamfist in language arguments when it's not clear that the purpose of letters are the same as notes.
e and e are different because I said so. checkmate😎
@@jakedewey3686 letters are the names of written structures, notes are the names of sounds. "sounding the same" does not have the same effect when talking about notes vs letters.
@@noonehere0987 Is it really hamfisted? I see very much the same core point being made in your comment as the one you're replying to: The conventions of letters in words, not unlike notes/tones in music, are contextual.
It doesn't matter what we call them in a vacuum. Their names and the rules we overlay on them only have meaning in the context of a greater composition and for the purpose of conveying an idea.
Amazing video, well crafted, very clear explanations. This should be shared with as many music theory teachers as possible!
@Repent and believe in Jesus Christ non-sequitur much?
They are the same DEPENDING ON KEY...its like Well, and well
He is well..the well is dry
What I don't understand, is some music is written in F sharp, and G flat
Is it "CLEAR" because you know about it before?
@@kathleenking47 F# is a bright key, Gb is much more rounded and mellow… seeing it in a page, the flats are calmer than the sharps
In an equal tempered tuned instrument, yes. Vocally there can be adjustments depending on voice leading and harmonic function of the note.
I always understood music notation through the metaphor that it is a language and that notes at the same position on a keyboard were like synonyms in reference to the same pitch, but the tuning aspect was pretty mind-blowing.
I play baroque flute. Because baroque music was written before equal temperament was adopted, when learning baroque flute you actually learn different fingerings for, say, G# and Ab, or A# and Bb. The enharmonic notes have different fingerings to ensure the slight variations of pitch. If you google a picture of Quantz’s flute, you’ll see that it has one key for Eb and a different key for D#.
Cb and B are the same if the perfect fifth is exactly 700 cents in size. If it is less than 700¢, B is lower; if it is greater than 700¢, B is higher.
Cb and B are the same pitch in 12 tone equal temperament only.
@@aaronsearle4307 And in other temperaments with a fifth of 700 cents, e.g. 24-TET, 36-TET etc
Equal temperaments only.
@@aaronsearle4307 Not all equal temperaments (only those with a 700 cent fifth) And also some non-equal temperaments (e.g. valotti)
I think they are only the same note in the same way F-sharp could be considered the same note as G-flat... what makes the note C-flat or B depends on the context in which it is being used. This issue along with a general bias towards sharper keys when dealing with major keys makes me think of that one key opposite C on the circle of fifths as F-sharp rather than G-flat... as the important IV chord of B major would actually be C-flat major were the key G-flat. Now, I would rather refer to the relative minor of that key as E-flat minor, as the leading tone of D would be C-double-sharp were it D-sharp minor instead.
Minor keys, because they have lots of raised 7s and 6s, generally work better written as flats when there's a choice. It tends to minimize those double sharps. Even though C major and A minor have the same key signature (none), A minor will have moments where it feels like a sharp key because of the F♯ and particularly G♯ that will be invoked in most pieces. I tend to think of Dorian as the "neutral" mode as far as this goes. D Dorian is dead center, C major is slightly flat-ish, and A minor varies from neutral to significantly sharp-ish.
Incidentally, I think minor modes have a lot more untapped potential for truly new music because there _are_ so many ways to dress them up, whereas major may drift to Mixolydian or Lydian on occasion to grab the V of V or the V of IV.
It doesn't just depend on the context but also the tuning. In equal temperament they are the same pitch, but in different tunings they are indeed different notes.
@@HappyBeezerStudios sure, but in equal temperament, they do still mean different things and "sound" different in another context, like the video explains. Both don't have to be true. If one or the other is true, it warrants the distinction
In regular diatonic temperaments, Cb and B are the same if the perfect fifth is exactly 700 cents in size. If it is less than 700¢, B is lower; if it is greater than 700¢, B is higher.
I’m totally one of those tech people you described 😂. Feels good to be put in my place by someone who can eloquently make the case for western music notation as an efficient language.
I don't know how this got in my feed, but the title intrigued me. As did the video length - I figured it was as simple as "Yes", as someone who played piano for several years. But it wasn't that simple.
Music theory sure is deep; thanks for the nice video!
Seems like a complicated way of giving a simple answer: the difference between Cb and B is *harmonic context*. Although, the review of math was fun. :)
Well, in the context of an instrument with pre-defined pitches, yes. But for something like a violin, trombone, or a human voice, there is definitely a more tangible difference between the notes.
From a visual artist perspective, I imagine it like using the same colour in a different palette. Like if you used a desaturated red next to orange, it would appear cooler and almost blue, but using it against a deep blue would definitely make it seem warmer and red.
which means it is definitely the same color, it's just that it's not important that it is
This was quite interesting to me! Although not too useful in my professional piano work, I also do band arranging, and as an arranger, it's good to keep this stuff in mind when writing for any instrument which doesn't use pre-tuned pitches. As a side note, I remember hearing of someone (obviously with way too much time on his hands, since this was way before the advent of arranging software) writing out an entire orchestra score of the same piece in both the original sharp key and the corresponding flat key. They then recorded an orchestra playing both versions and compared them. Their conclusion was that not only did the pitch of violins and other variable pitch instruments vary slightly between the two versions, but they also surprisingly found that the version written in the sharp key had more of a happy lilt to it, while the same exact song, written in a flat key, sounded more mellow and melancholy. This gets me to wondering whether the orchestra players in a group which included a piano would sub-consciously de-tune the notes to better match the pitch of the piano or if the poor pianist would just have to sound slightly out of tune in order to play along with the adjustments made by the variable pitch instruments. Perhaps a great arranger with knowledge of this would avoid having the piano play any notes that would feel de-tuned from the rest of the orchestra. Comments???
It's because of how violinists and strings in general play sharps and flats. We take the finger that usually plays the natural note and move up up when sharp, down when flat.
Have a violinist play a G# scale vs an Ab scale and there's a good chance that person will use a different fingering.
On the A string, the D is played with a third finger (ring finger, strings only have 4 fingers vs a pianist's 5). The E would be played with a 4th finger (pinky). So a D sharp will raise the third finger next to the pinky, and an E flat would lower the pinky next to the ring finger. This has a subtle natural effect of causing flats to be pitched slightly lower than sharps
This works really well because it often sounds great when doing things like resolving a maj 7th to an 8ve. So that subtle difference between sharp and flat can add a bit of an edge to some intervals and resolutions.
When you say the sharp key sounds "happier" it's because the orchestra is indeed using a higher, thus brighter, pitches overall. The flat kay will conversely have slightly lower pitches. It makes sense that the flat keys would tend to be slightly more muted and also potentially less resonant with the open strings of a violin.
In regards to an orchestra playing with a piano, it usually doesn't matter. The musicians will play as they typically do and it will sound good.
In the rare cases where strings might clash with the intonation of a piano, if the musicians are halfway decent they will automatically match intonation with the piano. String players are already constantly matching pitch with each other and other sections of an orchestra (or symphony, or what have you). And if they aren't doing this, then it's the director's job to fix the problem.
@@Miglow This also leads in to why most players of stringed instruments are more comfortable playing in keys featuring multiple sharps vs. most wind players preferring keys in multiple flats (particularly beginners). It's because when you add a finger on a stringed instrument, you shorten the string and the pitch goes up, whereas when you add a finger on a wind instrument, you make the tube longer and the pitch goes down.
Similar idea in a different field: in writing, it's been said that a good first edit might be to strike out every-other-word.
My project was to write something without much editing and produce two versions, each the every-other-word of the other, then give them to different people to edit to completion. Then compare the results.
What a great explanation from a superb teacher and communicator. Thank you.
I like to use Cb as shorthand when I'm just lowering all the notes or chords in a melody or chord progression by half a step on the fly (and if the original melody or chord progression contained a C). That's probably wrong, but sometimes I can't be bothered renaming everything.
That's a pretty good example of a practical use for this idea as a gigging musician.
That's pretty much exactly *the* reason to use C♭.
If by “C”you mean a C-major chord, then “Cb” would indeed be exactly that: Cb Eb Gb.
Samee
13:32 - Exactly! Traditional notation is designed for performance, not for precision. Piano rolls are incredibly hard to perform from, unless you’re a computer.
But it’s more than that too: Arguably, lute or guitar tablature is even more-directly optimized for performance. That, to the point where its really hard to figure out what the composition sounds like without actually getting out a lute/guitar and playing it!
With traditional notation, you can clearly see and hear in your mind what the music sounds like.
I guarantee you that if you're used to tab it's easier to hear in your head what it will sound like than sheet music ever will, because it's more efficient and contains more important information.
this could also be and example of a kind of cognitive bias though, i.e. you have spent countless hours learning and practicing sheet music, but you have not put equal time into tab/piano roll so it's not a fair comparison. but i still agree with you
I have only one complain, why not just write the note names as well. Like octave and intervals and those information are available anyway on current sheet music, but just adding the note names instead of the black fill would make it 1000 times easier to read for beginners.
@Adam Neely I wish if you could make a video on this topic alone. In Indian music we do write relative note names like Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni....and we still hear the inidan notation in our head. Doing this makes it incredibly easy to transpose music to any key. What is the advantage of absolute note notation?
People with different hand sizes can play the same guitar music using different combinations of strings. That is my issue with tablature.
@@rockapartie, overall I’m fine with tablature to augment notation, but the downside is that it takes up about double the space on the page, compared to finger numbers.
Dude! You guys put a great show @GothicTheater with Plini and Jakub Zytecki. Loved all the time changes and you've a great stage presence. Didn't knew you were a youtuber too.
Your bass/keys vamp on that Radiohead tune is awesome, man :)
I used to play violin, and this reminds me of a (potentially bad) habit I had of playing some flats and sharps differently. No idea if it's a thing, never asked my violin teacher. I've listened to music in equal temperament all my life, but I remember things like C-flat being slightly higher pitch than B (or the equivalent 7th in whatever key you are), or sharps and flats changing depending on whether you are going up or down a scale and the key you are in.
Lots of other commenters say the same so I don’t think it was bad at all, they said violin is only played in equal temperament when accompanying a TET instrument.
Look at this C# from Hilary Hahn - On Bruch Concerto: th-cam.com/video/KDJ6Wbzgy3E/w-d-xo.html - 1:17
This is intentional to create even more tension to resolve on D.
Or the Eb on Zigeunerweisen op.20 By Pablo de Sarasate
th-cam.com/video/Q8s5SZSS1tI/w-d-xo.html
Look what Sarah Chang does at 0:11 - This is intentionally low Eb exactly to match the Gipsy vibes on this piece.
@@rodrigomoraes2305 I'm glad someone brought this up.
I love how the colors of the letters in the intro correspond to how Adam percieves the colors of each note due to his Synesthesia. Adam Neely lore!
3:00, i love how they just happily agree with eachother.
3:41, it also happens here, lol, so joyful.
Omg you opened my eyes like 5 minutes 👁️ yeah that makes a lot of sense!!
I think what people have trouble understanding is the important difference between tone (pitch) and note, especially people who play piano and guitar or those who don't read sheet music. A tone (pitch) is what we hear and a note is what we see, and sometimes they're not the same. Cb and B are the same tone (pitch), but not the same note as they're written differently. I like the alphabet argument you bring up, it makes a lot of sense since most people know the alphabet.
I also like to bring up the triad argument. For example, a C major triad is written as C, E and G. Now if you want to raise this chord a half step up to C# major, we just put a "#" in front of every note. So C#, E# and G#. Switching E# for an F would break the symmetry of the chord, making it more difficult to understand. If we take the C# major triad written as C#, F and G# and flatten it back to a C major triad the chord would have to be written as C, Fb and G. Which is stupid. But suddenly this logic makes a lot more sense. Any chord that start with Cb, C or C# must consist of the alphabetical degrees C, E and G. If you insist on writing F instead of E# you should also raise the other notes by one alphabetical degree. So C becomes Db and G becomes Ab, making it a Db major chord instead.
And yes, the intonation argument is 100% valid but I think it's pointless to even bring it up since a lot of people wouldn't understand what the hell you're talking about lol.
There is a beautiful logic in how we write music, and we have to follow this logic to make our music readable in all keys. Of course, if you don't read music and just play by ear you don't have to give a F about this logic, which is fair to me.
Cb and B are the same tone only, and only if, you're playing in 12TET. As someone in the HIP world, I never play in 12TET anymore, despite it being the norm in the larger music industry. There's so many delightful temperaments out there that deserve to be experimented with in modern music, I feel, and once you start looking into non equally tempered temperaments, that distinction of pitch and note becomes much more obvious than it is in 12TET.
Plus then saying things like "E major is joyful", "B minor is patient" ect. actually starts making sense, because in 12TET all keys sound the same, because the interval between pitches is always the same.
@@Loweene_Ancalimon I 100% agree. But since most people are unfamiliar with anything beyond 12tet it's not really a useful argument to bring up when explaining enharmonics to a more casual musician lol. I do wish more modern- especially pop musicians/composers would experiment more with different modes and tunings and stuff instead of just going with the same four chords over and over again. It sells well but my soul just can't take it anymore. It's the result of music being sold as a product rather than a craft and it makes me sad just thinking about where the industry is headed.
just because an Ab minor is Ab, Cb, and Eb doesnt mean that Cd and B should be seen as different notes, it only means that there are different terms for the same pitch. you can think of them as the same note without being ignorant of when its a B and when its a Cb.
this arguement, as a consept, is bad faith. it draws a pointless line in the sand by inventing a reason why your smarter then someone else at music
edit: btw, if youre not using 12tet, then all that means is this point is even more pointless, because you wont even have a B if you already have a Cb to begin with
@@superhuman33 Thank you for adding to my point. Cb and B are both used contextually when notating music. With emphasis on "notating". When we talk about music we can use Cb and B almost interchangeably since we're talking about the sounding pitch, which is the "same" and no one will probably point it out. However, they shouldn't be used interchangeably in music notation since the notated Cb has very different properties than the notated B. As in Ab minor (Cb) and G major (B). If one wants to dive even deeper and talk about voice leading properties and such of the different notations, you can describe the differences even further but in all honesty, who would care. This shit only matters if you're notating music (or if you play an instrument where intonation matters). Sorry for not clearing this up earlier!
@@Loweene_Ancalimon Cb and B are the same if the perfect fifth is exactly 700 cents in size. If it is less than 700¢, B is lower; if it is greater than 700¢, B is higher.
I remember trying to make that same philosophical point about sheet music vs. alternative notations in a TH-cam comment (essay) a long time ago (may have been on one of your videos).
I just want to thank you for making this point at the end. People are quick to want to know and understand the best ways of doing things SO BADLY that they often dismiss methodology simply because they do not need it [yet.] The PROBLEM is these people are often loud and irresponsible with their platforms and end up essentially spreading misinformation or at least spreading a NARROW INTERPRETATION of the information as if it was a HOLISTIC TRUTH.
Thank you for the great work, Adam
I started learning guitar through rocksmith. and it's amazing, it sparked my interest enough that I began to learn by myself after getting experience there. the notation they use, wich is kind of a "guitar roll", is very easy to read, and allows you to play easy to intermediate music that you never listened before on the fly. I don't even know how to read sheet music, and I can say pretty confidently that it does NOT, in ANY way, makes sheet music obsolete. that's because this "roll" notation is "physical", not "musical". what I mean by that is that it tells you how to position your hands, for example, and not what kind of sound you have to make. this means that it only serves that music in that specific instrument in that specific tuning and in that specific tempo. also, it's not as nearly as intricate as sheets, wich means that there is a LOT of information that just isn't possible to convey through "roll" notation. however, this doesn't mean that sheet makes roll obsolete, too. as I mentioned, it was literally the device that allowed me to have enough interest to explore my instrument without having to pay for lessons or just straight up giving up. each method for each need!
This is a classic example of a “Chesterton's fence” where not understanding the why’s of something, some people want to rip it down, and others wish to leave it “in cases it is needed”. But here their are people that know why it is there. The trick is to find them, and not the over confidant people who think they know and yet do not know.
Scholarly fun! Thanks for posting! I always puzzled about the black key gap before C.
Excellent comment
I learned something new! Thanks for that!
The reason B sounds different is because you’re using it in the Major 3 sense which always wants to go up because it it’s position in the scale. C flat is used in the minor 4 sense which always wants to go back down to the 1 because 4 to 5 to 1 or 4 to 4minor to 1 is a very common progression. The note is the same, the chord it’s a part of and order it’s played gives it a different sound.
here in Germany this note is called "h".
At the time of Guido von Arezzo (who introduced the staff system) there were two variants of the note "B": the round "B-rotundum", which is a semitone lower, and the angular "B-quadratum". In the English tradition, the "B-quadratum" became the "B", while the "B-rotundum" became the "Bb" (pronounced "B-flat").
In German (and other languages), on the other hand, the round "B-rotundum" became "B" (♭) , while the angular "B-quadratum" is now called "H" (♮) here, to make it easier to distinguish from "B -rotundum". The cause is to be found in the printing press. Many printers simply lacked the typeface of the B-quadratum (♮) , and made do with the similar-looking H.
When I started playing guitar I never gave it much thought. However in High school I had piano & harmony and then I recalled the teacher explaining it very much the way you did. At that time I played by ear so it was to much trouble to go so deep into theory. Being dyslexic Once something becomes too complicated to follow the easiest path for me was to listen. c];-)
that emoji looks so old school... i like it.
I was avoiding this video knowing it'd be contentious but I came away learning something really cool! Thank you! That tech dig at the end was on point too :) Tech people thinking they can invent something better without having a full understanding of something? You don't say? :) (I feel like I can say that working IN tech). This came at a perfect time for me as I started practicing on a real piano again and reading sheet music and getting back into theory a bit. This explanation really complimented that and made me think about sheet music (and the nuances to live performing) a lot more.
That said...I'm gonna keep using Renoise (a piano roll in sheeps clothing) to sequence my modular rig. But the tuning ratios have me really really thinking about what that means.
Very cool stuff, thank you so much for putting this together!
I grinned from ear to ear when you played your piece to contrast the two notes, thanks for that
Okay. I think I'm getting the concept when you did the bigger peice. It's kinda like Color theory where the color look changes depending what is surrounding it.
So for example: A Gray can look more blue or more orange if you have red by that gray or a blue by that gray.
All colors do this depending what other color you have surrounding it. It's why some people can argue about what happens with a dress colors. (though that is more complicated because it also involves the color of the lighting and how the lighting works too, BUT that's a totally different concept that adds layers). I did hear the slight difference between the C flat and the B when the notes were different surrounding it, but that's a bit of how I understood it personally.
The important point is here is that the distinction is needed because in music notation (notes on a staff) this difference will communicate the function of a note in a melody or harmony from the composer to an experienced player and that can subtly (and often subconsciously) affect how they play that part of the music.
I was taught to think of chords visually as all lines or all spaces on the staff. Db is a space, F and Ab are also spaces, so the fourth note in the Db7 is Cb and that's just easier for me to remember.
Nice job explaining functional harmony in a simple way. Great video overall
your listener doesnt see bloat and sees the value. adam, YOU made 1,6 mill people understand something, thats incredible
As an artist, this reminds me of color theory. If you take one color and surround it with two different sets of colors (light vs dark, complementary vs analogous), you will completely change the feel and properties of that color to the point where they can look like two very different hues.
The fact that they're technically the same color is somewhat irrelevant, because their function and how they work with the other colors is what's important.
That's a good analogy for equal-tempered keyboards, but not for the voice and other instruments. In the latter case, the notes are literally different.
@@troldhaugen the same distinction applies in the colour world too. For digital painting the RGB values may be the same, but for physical painting the way you’re mixing your hues and shades will change and the reflectivity etc may well end up different at the end.
@@kaitlyn__L Interesting! In the case of music, before the invention of the equal tempered keyboard, I can't imagine any case where B and C flat could be the same in any sense, theoretically, physically, or in performance, unless musicians just happened to play according to equal temperament by random chance. I might be wrong about instruments such as brass instruments that don't have much pitch flexibility. If I'm understanding your analogy, not only the "painted" pitches, but also the "digital RGB values" of B and C flat were different before equal temperament, and still would be today if we didn't accomodate equal tempered keyboards.
@@troldhaugen I’d say that’s accurate. Of course every analogy breaks down if examined too far, since in the colour theory example you’re looking at functionality rather than specific eye cone activations (which is what an RGB screen cares about), and indeed the same hue with different textures, reflectivities, etc could still technically be the same hue when placed next to each other unlike in the just intonation example. But one would still be brighter, shinier, have more “depth”, etc. Just because colour has a few more dimensions than pitch.
@@kaitlyn__L I need to learn more about art and color theory.
I remember my violin teacher explaining that the context in which a note is played will change how sharp/flat to play that note. Like an f# should be played sharper in key of G than if it's in D. With stringed instruments or any instrument where accessing notes is spectral and not discrete, you really hear the difference despite the note being the same, even if it's just a mm difference in movement!
Very cool.
In the case of those instruments, there is no reason to call them the same note.
@@troldhaugen it's not that simple, listen to the opening of Haydn's C major violin concerto. Where you have to place the C on the first two chords of the solo part is about 1mm difference and its literally the same chord twice, just different inversions.
First chord is tuned to open G and first finger D (an E), with the C on the A string (2nd finger).
The second chord has the same C tuned to an open E string, and you gotta move that 2nd finger what feels like so far up it's wild. It's the perfect example of the compromise of equal temperament.
Modern performers just slam heaps of vibrato so you can't hear the harmony 😂.
Oh my... 'thank you' for the heads up on Tim Sweeney's attitude (in contexts). That's very telling. I'll be on the look out from now on.
I like that term “Western musical spelling” - helps me alot in getting why distinctions that can seem pedantic do matter in some contexts.
Music is based on context, so I totally understand why most academic support the idea of Cb and B being different notes.
But they're still the same note tho
yup, kinda... which is also.. kind of not exactly... hmm complicated
Only on equal-tempered keyboards. They are not the same when people sing them by ear or play them by ear on, say, fretless stringed instruments.
@@troldhaugen -- Seems to me the issue isn't the the system of temperament or the limitations of any particular instrument. Instead, to my mind, the issue is Western musical notation, which, in many modern musical contexts, is suboptimal. The problem is that Western notation was designed for a different time and adapted to communicate a rather restricted set of assumptions. The notation's still functionally adequate nowadays (of course, obviously), but alternatives should be more readily available and acceptable.
Well, what he's pointed out in this video is, that's only true for 12-note instruments with a fixed temper. Many instruments (winds(but only kind of), most brass(but only kind of), keyboards, guitar (again, only kind of)) are going to behave like this, and many instruments (voice, trombone, the entire string section) will see a difference and will tend to play those notes differently, so any understanding that only sees them as the same note is going to miss that complexity.
Violinists actually have to often make a conscious choice to follow equal temperament, and it sounds a little out of tune to them when they have to play with equal-tempered instruments like a piano soloist. The piano only has one key that plays both Cb and B, so the violinists tune both notes to match the piano.
And in the video, you saw him play Cb differently from how he would play B. It's an advanced, nuanced, and highly trained understanding, yes, but when you know all that, or when you play an instrument with no fixed, forced notes, you _genuinely_ aren't playing the same note. The pitch is _actually_ different. Only the western canon and the evolution of equal temperament makes it make sense to call them the same note for some purposes, and it's only a starting point.
He also showed you just how out of tune it sounds to play a major chord with the wrong one, relative to the right one. The equal temper version probably sounds fine to you, but the wrong note in just intonation sounds BAD. The two pitches he computes in the just-intonation algebra section are almost a quarter tone apart, judged against equal temperament. The equal temper version falls somewhere in-between.
I mean, I'm literally just saying stuff he said in the video, basically; if you watched it, you saw all of this stuff too. I don''t know why I typed this much considering like 80% of people just reply "sure but you're wrong" but it's not even mechanically the same pitch for a single instrument in the orchestra unless you're playing with a piano.
@@TheRealMarauder Exactly right. It seems like a lot of commenters are missing this point.
In barbershop-style singing, in the best quartets one can really hear the difference between B and C-flat (and other occurrences of similar "shared" notes). The emphasis on chord "ringing" truly forces this.
Oh, and BTW, your Bass-Face is so precious.
Cb and B are the same if the perfect fifth is exactly 700 cents in size. If it is less than 700¢, B is lower; if it is greater than 700¢, B is higher.
In german we would say „es ist dasselbe, aber nicht das gleiche“
Meaning: they’re the same, but not equal. I think that’s a perfect way to sum it up
LOVE THIS!!!
I LOVE this, I had a friend whom I could never describe this to, but you did it PERFECTLY!
I told him I think certain notes sound sharp or flat to me depending on other musical context (which in some cases sounds better or worse (bending notes)), but he doubted my understanding of microtonality. Thank you for helping me to understand the theory behind music :)
Adam, I want you to know how much I appreciate your work. Your pedagogy is rich, assessable, entertaining, and enlightening. I’m 60 years old, have 3/4 of a BFA (🙄😂), and a lifetime of amateur music making and I look forward to every one of your videos. Not only can I count on learning something I didn’t know, but I can depend on being inspired in unexpected ways. Thank you for the contribution you make to a better world.
Black and white confused Adam is exactly the amount of therapy I needed to be able to cope with the brain pain I'll get from watching a qualified video on music notation that I won't understand anyway but am very curious about.
Excellent video!
As pretty much a total beginner, i definitely find piano roll notation extremely easy to parse. I don’t have to go about learning a whole new tonal language in order to figure out which buttons to press. But viewing it as better than what already exists seems ridiculous- how would you go about printing this information? How would you put it in a readable paper format for an orchestra?
It's difficult to not feel of two minds of this. There are definitely times when standard musical notation isn't the best way to explain something. As a guitarist, if I've heard a piece of music several times, it's slower for me to read sheet music than tabs. But if I have never heard the music before, sheet music is going to better tell me what it sounds like.
But then there have been alterations to guitar tableture that does communicate that information. Guitar tableture has its own language and can even adopt things from sheet music that makes it more useful to guitar players than sheet music. There's a way to write guitar tabs that's going to make it easier for a guitarist to learn especially if they've never heard the piece.
But then that information doesn't translate. It might be easier for a guitarist to learn, but if you had to teach someone else in the band how to play a melody, this altered tableture might communicate next to nothing to the flute player hired for a session gig. You'd be better of humming the melody to them.
The reason there isn't a one size fits all solution is because one size doesn't fit all, but sheet music has enough crossover to have different musicians communicate infortmation to each other. And there are things that are inefficient, it biases a lot towards piano players but sometimes that's just how it is. It is very difficult to come up with a better system, hence why no one has done it before.
Piano roll is fine for easier pieces, but for more complex piano pieces it falls short. It can't really convey complex rhythmical information (like polyrhythms, or when to play rubato) or dynamical information (for which sheet music has a whole glossary of subtly different descriptors besides the usual pp, sfz, cresc etc.).
@@Nomen_Latinum I agree, piano roll just really provides the bare minimum tbh and doesn’t really give any info on phrasing, or literally any kind of dynamic that you get with sheet music
And how does piano roll notation convey articulations? Pedals? Dynamics? What if you use rubato? You will have to play along to a video at a constant speed, so good luck sounding like anything other than a robot. Rythms are also way easier to read with traditional music notation, as rythms are easy to recognize. Pieces played at different tempos will also look completely different, even with the same notes. Besides, having a standardized notation system that works for nearly all instruments is great
If you aren't able to learn sheet music, you definitely don't have the dedication to properly learn an instrument.
@@ragnarockerbunny interesting point. But as a classical guitarist I can read sheet music faster than tab most of the times. If most of your source of learning new music comes from sheet music it becomes second nature. Of course there are cases in which sheet music can be awkward but that is not the case for most of the classical guitar repertoire.
3:08 That's actually crazy how different the same notes sound wow
also nice music
I just know its differences since long time ago. This explanation really make me know more about it!
I love the conversational structure of this piece - reminds me of the short story Calliagnosia by Ted Chang
I’ve seen church pipe organs with separate B and Cb keys. They have them because they’re usually playing along with a choir.
I asked a question along the same route as this many years ago. I'm so glad to see you answering it!
I feel like Adam did another video on this like 18 months ago.
I totally agree with Adam.
@adamneely Great video!! It's a little surprising that your copy of "Harmonic Experience" hiding behind B&W Adam in this video, and not hanging out more prominently with full color Adam, eh?
i AM glad that you found an agreement with your b/w self in the end.
I went into music and tech at the same time in my late teens (now a firmware engineer and I love making synthesis programs in my spare time). There are vestibular incongruences in both fields, yet both have a lot of careful thought and logical beauty into them.
Brilliant as always ...and hey ...
Was that Marice Raval at the piano?
I was at my church and i told my music director (as a joke) that the song was in F flat and he just stared at me for a good five seconds before laughing 😂