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Originally Posted by wcostley
I had been looking at your Note Names and Intervals diagram only in a horizontal direction with each key as an independent entity from the other keys.
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You can do that as well. You can see the alphabetical relationship just by looking at one key.
When you write out all the notes in the scale, you have to use each letter of the alphabet only "one" time.
So, for the key of F that would be:
F G A Bb C D E
However, if you wrote Bb as A# that would be:
F G A
A# C D E
Notice that in this last one there are two "A" notes in the scale and no "B" notes. While this won't make any difference in the sound (as they are the same note) it is "technically correct" to use each letter of the alphabet only once in each key.
A very handy trick to figuring out whether a sharp or a flat should be used is to write out each letter of the alphabet first (since you know that each letter has to be used once). Then go back and add the accidentals (sharps or flats) necessary to make the scale.
Hope that helps.
-tkr