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Aaah… The Real Book. I got my first copy when they were illegal. Apparently, they are legal now. They were great for last minute jazz gigs. Great memories.
I never thought this would generate this much interest! How cool is that.
@espiegel123 actually, I agree. I saw a video on YouTube that said these notes were not a chord. Not being very interested I didn’t watch it but remembered it when reading this thread. Unfortunately, could not find the vid again.
D# and Eb name notes, which may have different pitches depending on other factors - this was not my point.
A minor chord will contain i.e. a minor third, the pitch of which is relative to the root. I mean that it’s all about the intervals, leading to the consequence that with dynamic pitch in play the correct pitch of a note depends on context. I think that means a D# could vary in pitch depending on its chord function. So saying that a D# and Eb can have different pitches (they can!) is a misdirection because it’s due to chord function not that it’s a sharp or flat. I hope that makes any sense at all
(I’m now wondering about how the pitch of root notes would be decided… maybe it’s the relative that matter more?)
I was working through some flute exercises yesterday (which had all accidentals written in) and thought, "Hmm, that bar seems like it's in Gb minor. Gb minor? Have I ever heard of that? It sounds reasonable..." and tried to work it out by what I know of music theory. In this case, move up three steps and you get the relative major. But that's A major, which has three sharps, but minor key signatures do have sharps (B minor has two sharps, for example), so... Googling revealed this page which actually gives a warning about this (bold text theirs)...
"Note Gb Ab Bbb Cb Db Ebb Fb Gb
Warning: The G-flat key is a theoretical minor scale key.
This means:
https://m.basicmusictheory.com/g-flat-minor-key-signature
Music can get weird.
It really helps to start young. Mom started me on the accordion at age 7. They were popular back then, until the Beatles showed up. I switched to piano when I could span an octave, at around 12. Reading music has always been a part of my musical experience. In middle school and high school I played trumpet in the concert band. Playing in a band setting forced me to play exactly what was written. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve been in one band or another for most of my life… rock, blues, country, jazz. I even played in a Ukrainian folk/rock band for about 2 years. Don’t laugh. Chicago has a large Ukrainian community and we gigged almost every weekend… and got paid! I stepped away from playing in 2004, until I found this iPad stuff. I miss playing in a band, but this is the next best thing. Have a great day!
Difference between Eb minor triad vs. D# minor triad, assuming we are dealing with the usual 12-tone equal temperament?
Assuming the music was created with functional harmony, if the underlying scale is C# major, then we can identify the chord as the "ii chord", which is the chord build on the 2nd degree of C# major, which is D#. Thus the chord would be D# minor. But if the underlying scale is Db major then the ii chord would be Eb minor. I can't offer much insight into why a composer/arranger would choose Db major over C# major, other than wanting to make the music easier to read for instrumentalists whose "home" key is a flat key like Eb (alto sax) or Bb (tenor sax).
Anyway, if the underlying scale is a major scale, there are 3 possible minor triads - the ii, ii, and vi which are built on the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th scale degrees.
If the underlying scale is one of the 3 minor scales, then the possibilities are different which is why so few Internet articles focus on functional harmony that is not built on the major scale. It's just more work to explain.
If the harmony is not functional (eg. modal harmony) then I think its easier to just identify the underlying mode, because you can build any chord you want out of any combination of the modal notes. I've seen arguments over how to name the chords in Maiden Voyage, which led to confusion, and found the chord progression easier to understand as the Mixolydian mode in 3 keys, followed by the Dorian mode in C#.
I think the original question was about key signatures rather than triads, so the triads would be the i in each case (and I would think implying the natural minor scale).
The OP does not mention key signature.
You’re right - I guess it just developed into that. I suppose there are quite a few answers to this then.
I did not consider @Paulieworld might be referring to key signature because the key signature for D# minor is 6 sharps (which could also be F# major), while the key signature for Eb minor is 6 flats (which could also be Gb major).
Or possibly he was because it’s a difficult answer? To be honest I can’t think of any piece of music I have ever seen in those keys, but I don’t think I would choose to score in those keys once I thought more about the difficulties.
No need. The reason Bach wrote a piece in every key for "The Well-Tempered Clavier" is because each key has its own personality when using Bach's tuning.
I have seen and played music in those keys, thanks to the time I spent in community orchestra.
But back to the OP I just don't see how 6 flats could be interpreted as a sharp key or 6 sharps be interpreted as a flat key, but everyone sees things a little differently it seems.
Well kudos to you for playing in those keys as I’m sure there’s an extra level of thought goes into them. The only piece I can think I have played with one of the less common sharps or flats in Beethoven’ Moonlight Sonata, where B# accidentals keep coming up.
Ebm is fairly common in rock music since tuning the guitar down down a half step from E was popularized by Hendrix.
As for piano, it's not uncommon in R&B and soul. Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder (Superstition, Higher Ground) Marvin Gaye (Heard It Through the Grapevine, Inner City Blues), and Aretha Franklin (Think, I Never Loved a Man) have tunes in Ebm, just to name a few artists.
Going to have to learn ok at that later. I know I have the music, but haven’t actually played them…
Now.. is a flat-flat-7th a 6th?
We’ll be answering after the break. Stay tuned
See my original post.
This one is “easy” if it’s the 7th degree of the scale it’s definitely a 7th not a 6th. Though a double-flatted note can exist, I’m not so sure that’s possible for a degree. Might be dependent on the harmonic system as I don’t stretch much beyond harmonic modes (yet).
There’s a diminished scale with 8 notes rather than the conventional 7 and this conventional 6th
interval lands on the 7th note of the diminished scale. It the scale that contains all the notes of the diminished chord along with the 1/2 step up neighbors. This also means the 7th and the traditional 7th a half-step up are in that special scale. Bebop solo lines tend to work this scales over any 7th chord and the sound really typifies bebop apart from any other genre. Robin Ford sneaks this scale into his blues
playing to create a very unique hybrid of blues and bebop that keeps guitar students studying his approach.
I maybe reductively think of a bebop scale as having “both 7ths” 😂
If there’s a real jazz student out there they pipe up and declare that there’s an 8 note bebop scale that the major scale with an added #4 that’s used for major chords… and probably another variant for minors.
Chromatic passing or neighboring tones decorate the lines of the bebop masters and even the piano lounge tinkles that want their music to scream jazz influences.
After some reading experience I found it easy to kind of cheat with my reading - eg. if the notation says 6 flat key signature, I'm hearing a minor tonality, and I don't see any naturals in the notation, there's a great chance all the notes are going to be in Eb minor, so I don't worry about the key signature itself all that much. In university music theory class we quickly learned just how easy it is to cheat with sight singing this way. Sorry if this is a confusing read but it's easier to understand when you're physically in the class singing with others.
Scale patterns on the viola are like the scale patterns on guitar. Once you know what the scale shapes look like in one key, you can use the same shapes in other keys by simply moving them up or down the fingerboard.
I dunno if you saw the updated OP but it turns out you're right. He's talking about the scale options in Piano Motifs, which technically is the same as key signature. However, once I select D# as the key, the Eb option disappears, and vice versa. So I don't know how the OP is able to see both D# and Eb in the app. In the context of that app, I don't believe it matters if you select D# or Eb anyway. But if OP or anyone else still doesn't understand D# vs Eb in the context of the app Piano Motifs, best to just ask the dev of the app, who continues to be as active and friendly as ever.
But the two sevenths are almost always played consecutively and descending. I think it's better to learn bebop by ear. The early beboppers were not thinking in terms of bebop scales. They were just playing passing tones to fill in the line and make the rhythm come out right.
It's a pretty useful key for blues and jazz pianists because all the black keys give you a nice minor pentatonic.
If you think Eb and D# would be offered by the app as a scale choice you might be surprized. Consider major key signatures:
1 sharp or flat G or F
2 sharps or flats D or Bb
3 sharps or flats A or Eb BINGO Eb major!!!
D# major will finally arrive at 9 sharps which won’t be offered or notated with 3 flats available. How do you get to 9 sharps? You start adding double sharps to the scale.
The be-bop "scale" is kind of a misnomer. It is one of those things that is handy as a teaching mechanism to demonstrate a common technique that jazz musicians use to organize chromaticism. But really it is just an illustration of the principle of using a chromatic passing tone to land on a chord tone on the beat. Be-bop musicians don’t think in terms of it as a scale.
While the diminished scale does get used sometimes in jazz, I think a lot of what looks like diminished scale in jazz is use of modes of melodic minor. The so-called altered scale (7th mode of melodic minor) starts with the half/whole/half pattern. I think guitar players often pick up the diminished scale as a sort of shortcut to some of the sounds of melodic minor because it is easier than melodic minor which has awkward shifts in the guitar.