A Player's Guide to Chords and Harmony Read Online Free PDF Page B

note as G6, G# is the same as A6, and so on.

    When a piece of music originally written in one key is moved up or down in pitch so that it's in a different key, we say that the music has been transposed. Transposing music to a new key is often necessary so that a vocalist can sing the melody without straining.
    Transposition doesn't mean simply slapping a new key signature on an existing bunch of notes. If we did that, the melody and harmony would most likely sound very strange. Instead, all of the notes are moved up or down by some number of half-steps so that the tonic note (for example, G in the key of G major) lands on the tonic of the new key (for example, E6 in the key of E6). All of the other notes in the piece are moved up or down by the same number of half-steps, with the result that the music sounds exactly the way it did before, only higher or lower.
     

ENHARMONIC EQUIVALENTS
    Look again at Figure 1-14. If you play the F# and G6 scales on a keyboard (or, for that matter, on a guitar or any other instrument) you'll find that you're using exactly the same notes, even though the two scales look completely different on the page. In fact, this is an extreme instance of a more general phenomenon: Many other notes found in two different scales are spelled differently while sounding the same - for instance, the D# in the B major scale is the same note as the E6 in the B6 major scale. What's unique about the scales of F# and G6 is that all of the notes are the same, but spelled differently.
    Notes that sound and are played the same, but are spelled differently, are called enharmonic equivalents. The word "spell" in this case refers simply to the choice of which letter we use to refer to the note. As we move into more advanced harmonic territory, we'll encounter many enharmonic equivalents.
    The fact that a given note can be spelled two different ways may seem at first to be merely an inconvenience. Why can't we always call a given note by a single name, and be done with it? (In fact, I've met a few guitarists who do exactly this. To them, the note a half-step above C is always D6, never C#.) There's an important reason for it, however. When notating scales, we want the scale to look sensible on the page, with one scale step per line or space on the staff. For instance, in the A scale, the notes A, B, C#, and D follow one another in a neat line. If we were to spell the third note as D6, then the A scale would contain the notes A, B, D6, and D. There would be two D's in the scale, and no C. This would make reading sheet music quite difficult. What would we use for a key signature? Would we put a flat on the line for the D, or not?
    A system in which the black keys on the keyboard can be referred to with the letter-name of either the white key below them (as a sharp) or the white key above them (as a flat) gives us a clear, concise way to notate and talk about all of the scales, chords, and intervals that are commonly used.

    Figure 1-15. Enharmonic equivalents. Each pair of notes shown here produces the same pitch. Notes like E# and C', are not often needed; they're only used in keys that already have lots of sharps or flats in the key signature.
    The F# and G6 scales illustrate another concept that will be useful from time to time. While a sharp or flat note is normally one of the black keys on the keyboard, this is not always the case. Remember that making a note sharp simply means raising it by a half-step. When we raise the note E or B by a half-step to E# or B#, we land on another white key (F or C respectively). So E# and F are enharmonic equivalents. The same thing is true of B# and C, F6 and E, and C6 and B (see Figure 1-15).
QUIZ *
1. What are the four basic elements of music?
2. Which major key has four sharps in the key signature? Which major key has two flats?
3. What is the relationship between two pitches called?
4. What is a set of three or more notes played together called?
5. What is the enharmonic