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Originally Posted by wcostley
I understand why it's not called a B, what I don't understand is why it's not called an A#, up until now what I thought I had learned was that when ascending the scale the note in between whole notes took on the name of the note it had just passed and became a #, and when descending the scale the same note would have just passed the B note so it would be called a Bb, so in my way of thinking since we're reading your chart from left to right we are ascending the scale, so it should be called an A#, all of the other places in your ascending diagram seem to follow along with what I thought I had learned because you use #'s instead of b's. Please don't think I'm arguing my point with you, I have no doubt that you are correct I'm just starting out and know very little if anything, I would just like to clear up this matter in my mind so it will stop bugging me.
wcostley "Skip"
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Hi Skip--
No problem at all. It all has to be understood, and even if you were arguing your point, I'd probably give the same answers!
Since all of the accidentals (sharps and flats) on the chart were sharps except for that one, I can see how this would lead you to think that way.
But the key to this chart is that while you're reading from left to right you're also cross-referencing each position with what's directly above and in between them.
We're in the key of F and we've come to the point where we're going from the 3rd note to the 4th. If you look above, the interval between the 3rd and the 4th note of the major scale is a semi-tone (or a half-step), or one fret space on the fretboard. If at the 3rd note we have an A, then a half step higher could not be an A# because of the alphabetical rule, right? So it has to be a B note of some sort.
It's one-half a step, or one semi-tone. Always between the 3rd and 4th notes and always between the 7th and 8th notes. Together with that, there's always a half-step between the note names of B and C, and also E and F.
If the rule had said that there was always a half-step between the note names A and B, then we'd have no problem. But we know from the rule that all other intervals are a whole step, or two frets. So that gives us a new problem. We can't call the B-type note a B# because that would indicate that we've gone one and a half steps from A. We need to call it Bb because we only have a half-step to work with.
Does this get it, or is there still some confusion? The point of the chart is not sharps and flats, it's intervals. If it makes more sense, look at the fretboard like this:
Notice that any note name that could be a sharp could also be called a flat. This means that they are physically the same note, but they're called either sharp or flat dependent on the key you're playing in; dependent on the interval, which is dependent on the alphabetical rule.
Steve