Enharmonic 1

Tagg: Everyday Tonality II — Enharmonic 1

Enharmonic

Addednum to Tagg’s online glossary 3 pp., 2018-11-11, 11:22, enharmonic.fm

ENHARMONIC mus. adj. characteristic of notes having identical pitch in equal-tone tuning but which for practical reasons are ‘spelt’ differently. For example, the note b4 (≈494 hz) is much more likely to be written c$4 (≈494 hz) in the key of B$ minor, but it will inevitably ap- pear as b@ in its own key of B (Fig. 1: 1-2). Similarly, the individual note pitch g, apart from being itself (Fig. 1: 3), should be spelt f! (‘F double sharp’) in a G# minor context (Fig. 1: 4). Just as it would be mad to write d e g$ g@ (5 ^6 $1 $1) for a simple 5-^6-^7-1 run-up from d to g, it’s absurd to write the same 5-^6-^7-1 run-up in G# minor (from d# to g#) as 5-&7-$1-1 or as anything other than d# e# f! g#.

Fig. 1. Enharmonic spellings and misspellings 2 Tagg: Everyday Tonality II — Enharmonic

Fig. 2. Enharmonic ups & downs: 12 × 12-note chromatic scales (equal-tone tuning)

Enharmonics aren’t just a matter of formal correctness, even though seeing, say, d# (‘D sharp’) when it should be e$ (‘E flat’) is a bit like reading ‘I no’ instead of ‘I know’. Enharmonic spelling has more to do with clarity and practical convenience. The idea is to let the notation- ally literate musician know about the immediate tonal context and di- rection of the line being performed, not least if the line is chromatic. That principle should be clear enough from Figure 2 which presents all twelve 12-note chromatic scales, both ascending and descending. The pitches in descent are, in equal-tone tuning, identical to those in ascent except they’re in reverse order and spelt quite differently. You’re much more likely to find sharps in ascent because sharps raise Tagg: Everyday Tonality II — Enharmonic 3 the note you’re currently on —they point upwards— and more likely to find flats in descent because, by lowering the note you’re on, they point downwards. Another principle of enharmonics relates to key. While it is not unu- sual to hear or read music in G# minor, you will almost never see anything in G# major: A$ major, yes, but not G#. This enharmonic conven- tion is due to the fact that while the key signature of G# minor contains only four sharps, the key of G# major would, if it were ever used, have a key signature containing eight accidentals: seven sharps plus one double-sharp. D$ minor, if it existed, would have the same problem in reverse: its key signature would have to include seven flats and one double-flat. A$ and D$ major, on the other hand, are quite common keys with their four and five flats respectively. Since making music in keys featuring six or seven accidentals (F#/G$, C# and C$ major plus D#/E$ and A$ minor) can already be quite a challenge, having to think in keys with eight or nine accidentals is a pointlessly difficult task. That’s why the minor keys whose tonic is one of the piano keyboard’s five black notes are: B$, E$ or D#, G#, C# and F#, never A#, D$ or G$ and very rarely A$. Similarly, while common major keys are B$, E$, A$, D$ and G$ or F#, you will never find major-key music in A#, D# or G#, and only rarely in C# major. If you’re dealing with a chromatic passage in tonical music, it’s always advisable to use accidentals belonging to key signatures closest to that of the tonic in your passage. -