![]() ![]() More importantly to your question, string players most frequently see music written in keys with sharps instead of flats. For example, string instruments have a fuller and brighter sound in the keys of A, D, and G major and their relative minors because they get to use strings in open positions. I recommend you read the top two answers to this question: What's the point of keys others than C and Am? Briefly, which key you pick well slightly affect the sounds that your musicians will be able to produce and how easily they'll be able to read your music. There are two primary considerations when picking a key: what are you most comfortable writing in, and, more importantly, what is most comfortable for the instrumentalists who will be performing your piece? G# and Ab when talking about music, even if (at least on a piano), they refer to the same tone. Incidentally, most classical or jazz musicians I know still make a difference between e. This only changed in the Baroque, where the invention of the well temperaments first allowed for instruments playing in all keys reasonably well without retuning (and where, as a prerequisite for this tones like Eb and D# were the same frequency ) and then the equal temperament which is the way most modern instruments are tuned. In those systems Eb and D# were actually different tones and, following from this, Eb minor and D# minor were two distinct scales. For a long time many different tuning methods, e. When starting from basic physics, there are several ways to tune an instrument "correctly". To address the second aspect, which is that Eb and D# actually are not different names for the same scale, one has to dig a little deeper. This aspect has been addressed in other answers. In this regard, there really are two ways to describe one scale (although each way still might lead to different chords being used as harmonies) and one is probably more common. One is about the practical aspects related to music which is intended to be played on modern instruments with a basically european heritage. There are actually two aspects to consider in order to answer to this question. I can't speak for other instruments (and for other instruments I'm sure what I'm about to say is less accurate), but if you're working with the piano, you can safely ignore any other form of tuning for twenty years or so without any negative impact on your musical development. Note that this is all only true when you use "equal temperament" as opposed to other forms of tuning. So, again, we generally go with the simplest way to get the key we want. (C# major, same key as Db major, has seven sharps.) Except there are only seven notes! So we say C# minor instead, and it has four sharps. (Get it? Two flats is three more flats than one sharp.sort of.) And here: Db major has five flats, and Db minor has eight. Where it gets tricky is here: G major has one sharp, and G minor has two flats. B major has five sharps, B minor has two. So, C major has no sharps or flats, and C minor has three flats. Perhaps the reason you ask the question about minor keys is that a minor key always has either three less sharps or three more flats than its enharmonic (i.e., same name) major key. This is just as you would do with major keys. So, five flats over seven sharps, five sharps over seven flats, and either six flats or six sharps (they are both the same). The simple answer is that you use whichever one has less sharps or flats. But then work your way through all of the keys so that you can more easily handle more difficult pieces when presented with them. If you don't have a particular piece in mind, start learning the Eb. However, if you change keys in the piece, perhaps to a more accessible sharp key, it would be reasonable to avoid switching from flats to sharps, and to stick with the D# minor representation. In general, it is preferred to use the Eb minor representation for the above reason. To contrast the Eb and D# natural minor scales:Ģ F E# -> (F) (we usually consider E# as F)Ħ C B# -> (C) (we usually consider B# as C)ħ D C# -> (D) (we usually consider C# as D)Īs you can see, more work must be done to translate the D# minor scale to the actual note, with a double sharp (in the melodic minor), meaning the note shown on the scale is C, but the musician must modify it with two sharps, and the actual note played is D. To make the scales more friendly to newer musicians, you typically want to frame a scale in such a way that it seems to have the notes modified as little as possible.
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