Who Really Understands Musical Enharmonics?

Students sometime ask why certain major scales don’t exist, such as G-sharp major. Actually, they do exist in theory, and you will occasionally see them in music. But they are not common simply because they require double-sharps or, in the case of some flat keys, double-flats. Also, you’ll see that key signatures don’t exist for these scales for the same reason. Still, double-sharps and flats are sometimes unavoidable, but we don’t have to worry about them until we get to minor scales.

Enharmonics

Let’s take a look at the last major scale with sharps in our sequence of scales using the tetrachord method of building scales, C-Sharp major:

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Look at and , E-sharp and B-sharp. As you can see, the actual keys are the white keys, F and C. But we don’t write them as F and C because:

Every scale uses all seven letters of the musical alphabet.

Otherwise the scale would be spelled C#-D#-F-F#-G#-A#-C-C# and would look like this:

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Even though the two scales above sound exactly the same, when building scales, use all seven letters of the musical alphabet (A-G), making accidental adjustments as necessary. Besides, there are no white keys on non-keyboard instruments, so the quirk of giving a white key such as C an unusual name such as B-sharp does not exist.

Whenever the same sounding pitch is written with different notation, such as E-sharp and F, or B-sharp and C, we call them enharmonics. In other words, an enharmonic is the same sounding pitch spelled two different ways.

Enharmonic Scales

Just as single pitches can be spelled enharmonically, so can entire scales. Let’s take another look at all of the major scales arranged by tetrachords. Click on the graphic to enlarge it, or open the pdf file here.

There are three sets of enharmonic scales. B major/C-flat major, F-sharp major/G-flat major, and C-sharp major/D-flat major. Each pair of these scales sounds exactly the same. So how does a composer or arranger know which one to use? The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter. But in actual music, the context often will determine which one is the most logical. Let’s look at and listen to one of the pairs as an example:

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Notice that both scales (C-sharp major and D-flat major) use all seven letters of the musical alphabet. Each note moves up by step to the next “letter” and the accidental adjusts the pitch to accommodate the pattern needed for the major scale.

The Flat Major Scales

The procedure for building the flat major scales is exactly the same as it is for the sharp scales, only we start with the scale with all notes flat (C-flat major). Remember for the sharp scales, had to be raised (made sharp) to get the WS-WS-HS pattern for the second tetrachord. For the flat keys, is still raised, but this time it is raised by taking the flat away. Taking a flat off of a pitch is the same as making it sharp since it makes it a half-step higher. Notice that a flat disappears for each subsequent scale, and it is always , until the sequence of major scales arrives at C major where the cycle started.

You now have everything you need to play and learn all of the major scales. I recommend going over the last three lessons again; let it soak in before you move on. Practice writing the scales using the blank manuscript paper provided here. Then check your work against this list of major scales. If there’s something you still don’t understand, please don’t hesitate to contact me with your questions. I’m here to help. And teachers who may be reading, please feel free to add your comments that you believe might bring clarification.

Finally, whatever music you are playing, whether it be a pop song or a classical sonata, try to find major scales. I guarantee you they are all over the place, maybe not blatantly up then down as in our examples here, but you’ll find them in abundance. Whatever you do, don’t just learn these scales without seeing how they operate in real music! Eventually, our lessons will include actual musical examples, but not until we get a few more of the fundamentals down. But you don’t have to wait. Start digging into the music you love now!

Next, we’ll move on to major key signatures. As you’ll see, key signatures are nothing more than a method of shorthand for writing the scales you have just learned.