A handwritten score by a French composer contains an orchestra part that changes from D# to Eb in the same measure. The key signature is 6 sharps. The question asked to me was whether the second note is actually an Eb, or if the flat simply cancels out the E# in the key signature, making it a natural E.<\/p>\n
The player mentioned it might be a convention of French music to have the flat cancel out the sharp in the key signature. I believe the Eb is simply what it is, an Eb and I will explain why.<\/p>\n
Flats and sharps are simply what they are, they are not added to or subtracted from the key signature or previous accidentals. In other words, a written Eb will always be just Eb – makes no difference about key signature or what is before.<\/p>\n
Now there was a time in Early Music where the execution of accidentals had not been standardized. There was a time where accidentals would carry through a piece until they were changed again. In other words, if on page one the score show an F#, then the F’s would remain sharped until changed again – if that didn’t happen til page 5 it made no difference, the F’s remained sharp until let’s say on page F it was written as an F natural. Now imagine how confusing this was for a player to jump in on page 3 having no knowledge of the previous accidental! This is why it was later made standard that an accidental would only last for one measure.<\/p>\n
In music theory the chords of the score each relate to each other. A Cm chord has a different quality and function depending how it fits into the score. For example: A Cm as the tonic in the key of Cm, or a Cm as the ii chord in Bb major, or the Cm as a vi chord in Eb major. As a composer writes, especially with chromatic music like Wagner, it’s common to temporarily change keys within a song – but in a very short phrase the key signature won’t be changed – it is done with accidentals. This is why when looking at a single part it may not make sense how the note is written, but it DOES make sense when seen with the score as a whole (if it is written and scored well).<\/p>\n
The conundrum is that if you don’t see the underlying chord movement in your mind, the note seems written as a mistake. If you DO understand the underlying chords, and the writer notates the pitch so it’s easier to read but doesn’t support the actual theory of the chord – it’s VERY confusing to read. Most of the time I notice notes like this “dumbed down” in modern praise music, band charts, and usually when someone has written a score by hand without really understanding the chords.<\/p>\n
An example of this: You are in the key of Bb major (two flats). In the middle of the piece the composer writes a ii-V-I to temporarily module to the key of E (chords would be F#m – B – E). On the “B” chord the third is D#. The player that is scored for that note sees they are in the key of Bb, but instead of an Eb written, they see D#. It looks like a mistake. But if they saw the whole score they would know it can ONLY be D# because it is the third of the B chord. If it were dumbed down to an Eb the chord would become the notes B-Eb-F# – if I were to sightread that I would miss it, thinking it were a jazz extension.<\/p>\n
I hope this all makes sense. It’s much simpler to understand it than it is to explain it….like most things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A handwritten score by a French composer contains an orchestra part that changes from D# to Eb in the same measure. The key signature is 6 sharps. The question asked to me was whether the second note is actually an Eb, or if the flat simply cancels out the E# in the key signature, making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3C0LX-yn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conradaskland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}