Is Cb the same note as B? 

but what if I _really_ feel like fighting someone today?

I was told something similar by my music teacher in middle school. That answer sat well with me despite being the argumentive type

What kind of woke shit is that .

@@santosmadrigal3702 ???

@@joshkary5040 I know all the notes . Is it just me or does everyone know the ABC'S and Twinkle twinkle little star are the same song .

truly a short definition of this man whole career

Truly an artist at heart, lol

@Morris X Official I mean hey, sometimes you gotta ask annoying questions to get people thinkin'

@Morris X Official recognize the full worth of. "she feels that he does not appreciate her" Similar: value respect prize cherish treasure admire hold in high regard hold in esteem rate highly think highly of think much of have a high opinion of set (great) store by 2. understand (a situation) fully; recognize the full implications of. "they failed to appreciate the pressure he was under" Similar: acknowledge recognize realize know be aware of be conscious of be cognizant of be alive to be sensitive to be alert to sympathize with understand comprehend perceive discern take on board be wise to Opposite: be unaware of Feedback

@Morris X Official my pleasure! Let me know if you need anything else, pretty bored working from home today. Lots of people starting to take time off. Do you have any snow? What are conditions like where yku live? Stay warm!

How about Cb and B#?

@@FireRupee Two different strings as well and yes - this time the lower strings would have a higher pitch. :) Same goes for E# and Fb.

@@Zet237yt Perfectly balanced, AS ALL STRINGS SHOULD BE.

@@FireRupee C flat is equivalent to C Sharp I guess going by the major 3rd system

That is a dangerous way to call yourself lmao

It’s okay lil bro

As a guitarist, same

​@@vosoryan Yay, enharmonics. My guitar teacher studied guitar (fairly obvious there) and music theory at the graduate level. I was doomed from the start. Seeing it on a piano definitely helps.

No. End of story.

Maybe. End of story.

It always depends on the tuning of the chord, at least in orchestral playing. Why is this B written as Cb? There's a reason for it (or should be).

@@Nice_Fella yes but also no End of Story

cflat more like cbat

Same here as a violinist. I can totally feel the difference between notes like that (and even ones that are even more "the same" such as A# vs Bb) but just the slightest difference in the angle of my finger (not even the placement, the angle) can make the note feel more like a A# vs a Bb

Also a trombonist. I always practice with a pitch reference. Feels good to hear correct pitches in context.

Yes... sounds right.

Also a trombonist here - just wanted to add that if I see an A# in a piece of music, there's a high chance I'm going to instinctively play it in 5th position instead of 1st, because the spelling of that note implies that I'm probably going to play a B natural soon. If I see a Bb, I'm probably going to play it in 1st position. Spelling matters, it gives performers clues as to what to expect or gives context to what others might be playing.

As a pianist who later learned the trombone, I disagree. Enharmonics appeared everywhere in my music in order to keep consistency in complex key signatures

You said what I was thinking.

I spent the video working hard to wrap my mind around this concept, and I got it at the end, but your analogy was far easier to understand.

That is for all colours. All colours are affected by their context, and colour theory tells us the effect of using a certain colour on a certain context Likewise, music theory gives two markings for the same pitch since context (the scale used) matters for how someone will perceive those notes. Which is why music theory calls them enharmonic equivalents (same pitch, different mark) instead of outright equal notes

Equal notes are noted the same. The answer is in the question, an easy no

This is the simple and correct answer.

Thanks! I was wondering why this needs to be a 15 minute video. Now I can stop watching after 40 seconds.

@@Brinta3 Well, the video did supply more details.

Now I am sincerely curious, because I have never heard any musical piece from anywhere in the world that is not in equal temperament. If there is one, please tell me because I'm really curious how it would sound.

@@tuppelkneinhoftsnaak There's lots of music worldwide that is not tuned to 12TET- for instance, all Balinese gamelan music. From the European tradition, everything before about 1800 was not tuned in equal temperament at the time. Here's an example: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7GhAuZH6phs.html

No bass solo, downvoted

Feeling a strong 8 to a light 9 on this reference.

@@slonk420 he did do a bass solo, just not at the beginning of the video

@@ryan11hawk Bruh, I'm high and I turned off the video after I saw my opinion repeated (different keys have different notations and so they're different). Just like a Fantano video, I hear my opinion, I get super smug and I turn it off 😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹 I'm gonna watch it later tho Unlike with Fantano videos😹😹😹

Only real Gs remember when Adam was a melon too

Yeah this is the smart and well explained version of the grumpy feeling this video gave me.

How about instead of sharps and flats spell it with prime factors C=C, D=C×3²÷2³, E=C×5÷2², F=C×2²÷3, G=C×3÷2, A=C×5÷3, B=C×3×5÷2³ This will make intervals just like just ratios, major third is 5÷4, minor third is 6÷5, etc. Then for meantone use the invariant 3⁴÷2⁴÷5=1, so we can express 5 with 3⁴÷2⁴ and have C=C, D=C×3²÷2³, E=C×3⁴÷2⁶, F=C×2²÷3, G=C×3÷2, A=C×3³÷2⁴, B=C×3⁵÷2⁷, sharp=3⁷÷2¹¹, flat=2¹¹÷3⁷ This makes the circle of fifths the amount of factors of 3 that you have, with 2 being octave. For quarter comma meantone assume the exact value of 3 as 5^(1÷4)×2, and for equal temperament assume the exact value of 3 as 2^(19÷12) (so 5 becomes 2^(28÷12)).

Congratulations, you've just invented tabs! G is just an E with 3 sharps -> E-| - - 3 - -

@@spkbri 😂

@@spkbri oh yeah. It’s all coming together.

just listen to creep by radiohead?

@@Stuff-is-coolor listening to literally any rhythm changes song and getting told to be told to listen to I got rhythm. Jazz would break.

I only had detention once, but l loved it! A whole hour to read in quiet instead of trying to drown out the noise of a house full of people! The teacher wanted to leave but l didn't!

For the octave you ar right!! Exactly twice the frequency. The fifth however, is not exactly 1.5, it is approximately 1.4983, which is close, but just not it.

At least it should still work in different temperaments, but then you will use different values. Decimal approximations are indeed not the way to go, because the human ear is logarithmic for all intends and purposes.

​@@tuppelkneinhoftsnaak The fifth ideally, is exactly 1.5 times the frequency of the previous note. But, because (3/2)^12 isn't exactly a power of 2, we have to make compromises to assign frequencies to notes, which results in about a 1% error. The compromise we make with equal temperament is to prioritize the octave being exactly a doubling in frequency, and distribute the rounding error equally to all intervals. Some temperaments prioritize the first few fifths from the base note, and put the error in all the less common notes played in that key.

In regards to this topic. Yes lol

They are, just like F# and Gb

@@zetmoon f# and g# are different on every instrument ;-P

@@brdrnda3805 my bad

@@zetmoon no you were correct . F sharp and gflat sound the same on the piano

@@cogforreal5952 I corrected my post….

Nope. Where Cb and B aren't the same, neither are those two. Why would D# and Eb be the same, when they're not, right?

How are they the same when it is noted differently every time?

Your Jack Russell needs more music theory lessons from Adam so the can learn to tune his howls to suit your moods...

You're correct. I'm a violinist with experience playing in orchestras. When we're doing what we are supposed to, we hear the intonation of the whole group and adjust intervals so that chords sounds nearly perfect -- fifths, thirds etc match to the harmonic series much better than autotune (or any kind of equal temper instrument) can achieve.

Set LFO to free running and either sine or sample and hold. add 0.3 pitch as modulation. Sweetness, electronically.

Who would dare to autotune a string section?

@@MongerOfStrings8222 These days, there are people who will autotune anything.

Or I think,, "row" (row a boat) and "row" (row and column). Looks the same, sounds the same, but means different.

But in Adam there are two A's, they have a different sound but they are the same letter.

I always hear people say this and it sounds strange to me. Two and too I pronounce the same, but not “to”. If I say out loud “one, two, three,” that sounds different than “one to three.”

​@@ericeaton2386 "To" actually has two pronunciations, stressed and unstressed, while "two" and "too" each only have one. In your example ("one to three") the "to" is unstressed therefore it's pronounced with a schwa instead of an "oo" sound.

@@ericeaton2386 An example of a stressed "to" would be the one in "I'd love to!"

emphasis on “for a piano”

... but the pianist would play it differently

Did we watch the same video?

That's the same as saying red and blue are the same for colourblind people. Pianos are inherently tuned wrong

A. Not all music is played on the piano B. Notes will be treated differently (dynamics, articulation, trill, melisma etc) based on their harmonic function C. NOT ALL MUSIC IS PLAYED ON THE PIANO

Good point. I was also confused by this aspect, until I did the math and realized that "shoehorning" natural sounds into a well tempered scale (with 12 semitones per octave, over multiple octaves), requires deviations from natural harmonics. However, instruments that don't have keys or frets (voice included) are not constrained to the well tempered frequencies list; therefore they can "re-tune on the fly", based on natural harmonics. When that's done properly, sounds "lock in" as you called it, giving a cappella performances that unique sound that many musical instruments just cannot replicate.

Yeah, I remember when I played the viola the notes would be slightly different once I got good enough, because none of the instruments were locked in to equal temperament the better players would play in true temperament without noticing.

​@@Mike_Rogge even in a solo piece the pitches can still change based on the harmonic context. Even when staying within the same key.

PROOF Cb=B# And does B#=B

You're tuning your harmonics to each other and locking into that. Every 'section' does this - brass, winds, strings. The better you are, the faster you sync. And without other sections as context, you sing a 'purer' scale, your fifths are likely exact 3/2 ratio, not twelfth-root-of-two based.. It's all subconscious, when the orchestra gather, the differences resolve into divinity.

Exactly! It's like reading the sentence "I eight sum stake four dinner" vs reading "I ate some steak for dinner". If you're the one reading, the first one probably makes no sense to you since it makes no sense semantically; you'll likely have some difficulty in making it sound natural and giving it the proper inflection, as opposed to the second one. But to someone hearing you they'll probably sound the same

The actual *hidden* assumption of those who argue that they are the same is: "A note is solely determined by its sound." Or more boldly, "The art of music is only concerned with sound." But this is far from the case.

That makes a lot of cents.

@@ThisIsARU-vidAccountAsd This is an extremely good comparison that communicates the idea very very well. It's not so much that Cb and B sound different, but they are used in different contexts, and that matters.

If you said "write" instead of "right" verbally, they are the same (excluding context). If music is sound, then they're the same note. Similarly, if words are sound, then homophones are the same word. Obviously, when you try to translate the sound onto paper, you're going to need the context clues of the surrounding material to write the correct word/note.

That is a luxury you can afford because tabulature toddler and chord symbols largely dodge this distinction. When learning to properly read standard notation, you'll notice fairly quickly that "correctly spelled" sheet music can help greatly in thinking less while sight reading.

I'm just letting you know dude, you're really going to want to internalize "one per letter per scale" as early as possible, BEFORE it becomes directly relevant to what you're trying to do. This will save you huge amounts of angst in terms of unlearning bad habits down the road.

As a classical saxophonist (frequently dogged on by both jazz and classical musicians) it really depends on what format you're using to communicate musical ideas. My partner is an electric bassist in an indi/pop-ish band, and in that context doesn't have much use for this kind of distinction. He's an extremely skilled musician, and almost always learns songs aurally, it's just faster and more effective. On the other hand, I read almost all the music I play, as learning it aurally and having it all memorised just isn't practical. I come across Cb's surprisingly often, and they just don't bother me anymore, as it's just how a note is correctly spelled in certain contexts. Anyway, in conclusion, you can be an excellent & skilled musician regardless, it just depends on how you want to engage with music. This whole argument is a waste of time imo, we should all be practicing!

Meanwhile I don't even thinking about note/chord name while I'm playing, my brain just too slow to do something like that... P.S. Now I'm thinking about it... Actually most of the time I don't even thinking about the note name while writing music... It's very common for me to write music without knowing what key and what chords that I used... And only later when I analyze it then I know what key I'm in and what chords that I used...

Better music doesn't need better nomenclature. There are mountains of fantastic music written by people who couldn't even read sheet music.

Now I need a pedal steel harp. Let’s make it happen!

You can sometimes produce a mere four pitches as you get away from C major. C♯ D♭ E♯ F♮ G♯ A♭, and you could even pedal around on the B string as a sort of line cliché, the "My Funny Valentine" 1 ♮7 ♭7 6 passage. This might even be a reason for a composer to deliberately pick a distant key.

@Repent and believe in Jesus Christ non-sequitur much?

They are the same DEPENDING ON KEY...its like Well, and well He is well..the well is dry What I don't understand, is some music is written in F sharp, and G flat

Is it "CLEAR" because you know about it before?

@@kathleenking47 F# is a bright key, Gb is much more rounded and mellow… seeing it in a page, the flats are calmer than the sharps

It's kind of pretentious, it essentially just means you unconciously expect it to lead upwards. Try playing a c major scale, you'll notice that the "yearns" to resolve to C.

I and Y oftentimes made the exact same sound. Are they the same letter?

Gif and jiff are pronounced the same, so have two letters that sounds the same, therefore g = j? Stop trying to hamfist in language arguments when it's not clear that the purpose of letters are the same as notes.

e and e are different because I said so. checkmate😎

@@jakedewey3686 letters are the names of written structures, notes are the names of sounds. "sounding the same" does not have the same effect when talking about notes vs letters.

@@noonehere0987 Is it really hamfisted? I see very much the same core point being made in your comment as the one you're replying to: The conventions of letters in words, not unlike notes/tones in music, are contextual. It doesn't matter what we call them in a vacuum. Their names and the rules we overlay on them only have meaning in the context of a greater composition and for the purpose of conveying an idea.

Minor keys, because they have lots of raised 7s and 6s, generally work better written as flats when there's a choice. It tends to minimize those double sharps. Even though C major and A minor have the same key signature (none), A minor will have moments where it feels like a sharp key because of the F♯ and particularly G♯ that will be invoked in most pieces. I tend to think of Dorian as the "neutral" mode as far as this goes. D Dorian is dead center, C major is slightly flat-ish, and A minor varies from neutral to significantly sharp-ish. Incidentally, I think minor modes have a lot more untapped potential for truly new music because there _are_ so many ways to dress them up, whereas major may drift to Mixolydian or Lydian on occasion to grab the V of V or the V of IV.

It doesn't just depend on the context but also the tuning. In equal temperament they are the same pitch, but in different tunings they are indeed different notes.

@@HappyBeezerStudios sure, but in equal temperament, they do still mean different things and "sound" different in another context, like the video explains. Both don't have to be true. If one or the other is true, it warrants the distinction

In regular diatonic temperaments, Cb and B are the same if the perfect fifth is exactly 700 cents in size. If it is less than 700¢, B is lower; if it is greater than 700¢, B is higher.

But also different pitches in just temperament tuning, which is (unintentionally or intentionally, depending on the context) used in a fair amount of musical contexts!

@@mandobrownie It's weird to talk about "just intonation" as if it were a well-defined thing though. You need some starting pitch, like A 440 to base the rest of the notes on. And then how you get to the other notes changes what frequency you get.

@@wardm4 Totally agree with that you're saying. Just wanted to contrast with equal temperament systems

Excellent comment

By the way: H flat it called B then so clearly: Not the same!

Same thing in Finland and it hurts my soul

@@thedave4369 Indeed. So a Cb is indeed an H, fight me!

@@HaxxTu Germany, the Scandic and the Slavic countries all use this convention.

Funny that I don’t usually think I’m far right, but here I would place myself on your rubric.

midwit

You should switch right and left around, makes more sense that way

@@jonasmartinsen3439 no, the left side is low iq and right side is high iq

Actually even after OP edited it, and regardless of either way you put the left or right of the graph, one is the succinct way of saying it, "Of course they aren't the same note, you write them differently." The other way removes a couple words and adds one word, because, suddenly it's different now: ""They aren't the same not because you write them differently". And then OP put in a bunch of implied apparently telepathy that happens. And the 'implied telepathy' here in parenthesis, is the smug asshat way of having to always be right, because gosh dern gee willickers, you paid for that rubber stamped music degree, didn't you?

Cb and B are the same if the perfect fifth is exactly 700 cents in size. If it is less than 700¢, B is lower; if it is greater than 700¢, B is higher.

Cb and B are the same pitch in 12 tone equal temperament only.

@@aaronsearle4307 And in other temperaments with a fifth of 700 cents, e.g. 24-TET, 36-TET etc

Equal temperaments only.

@@aaronsearle4307 Not all equal temperaments (only those with a 700 cent fifth) And also some non-equal temperaments (e.g. valotti)

I remember annoying one of my teachers when I first noticed the various possible alternate fingerings, and to amuse myself I’d alternate between them for no reason, and she’d be all “noo bad habits”

There are also situations where different fingerings for what should be the same note will be slightly different. Not by anything near a half step, but enough that it can make a difference in an ensemble: Fingering 1 may be more in tune than fingering 2

Cb and B are the same if the perfect fifth is exactly 700 cents in size. If it is less than 700¢, B is lower; if it is greater than 700¢, B is higher.

And then you learn how to play your F# major scale in thirds, and you completely unlearn any distinction between the two fingerings as you fight to survive

@@michaelmcleod6203 hahahahhaa yes you do whatever you have to do. Just dont play A or E natural.

I guarantee you that if you're used to tab it's easier to hear in your head what it will sound like than sheet music ever will, because it's more efficient and contains more important information.

this could also be and example of a kind of cognitive bias though, i.e. you have spent countless hours learning and practicing sheet music, but you have not put equal time into tab/piano roll so it's not a fair comparison. but i still agree with you

I have only one complain, why not just write the note names as well. Like octave and intervals and those information are available anyway on current sheet music, but just adding the note names instead of the black fill would make it 1000 times easier to read for beginners. @Adam Neely I wish if you could make a video on this topic alone. In Indian music we do write relative note names like Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni....and we still hear the inidan notation in our head. Doing this makes it incredibly easy to transpose music to any key. What is the advantage of absolute note notation?

People with different hand sizes can play the same guitar music using different combinations of strings. That is my issue with tablature.

@@rockapartie, overall I’m fine with tablature to augment notation, but the downside is that it takes up about double the space on the page, compared to finger numbers.

That's a pretty good example of a practical use for this idea as a gigging musician.

That's pretty much exactly *the* reason to use C♭.

If by “C”you mean a C-major chord, then “Cb” would indeed be exactly that: Cb Eb Gb.

Samee

It's difficult to not feel of two minds of this. There are definitely times when standard musical notation isn't the best way to explain something. As a guitarist, if I've heard a piece of music several times, it's slower for me to read sheet music than tabs. But if I have never heard the music before, sheet music is going to better tell me what it sounds like. But then there have been alterations to guitar tableture that does communicate that information. Guitar tableture has its own language and can even adopt things from sheet music that makes it more useful to guitar players than sheet music. There's a way to write guitar tabs that's going to make it easier for a guitarist to learn especially if they've never heard the piece. But then that information doesn't translate. It might be easier for a guitarist to learn, but if you had to teach someone else in the band how to play a melody, this altered tableture might communicate next to nothing to the flute player hired for a session gig. You'd be better of humming the melody to them. The reason there isn't a one size fits all solution is because one size doesn't fit all, but sheet music has enough crossover to have different musicians communicate infortmation to each other. And there are things that are inefficient, it biases a lot towards piano players but sometimes that's just how it is. It is very difficult to come up with a better system, hence why no one has done it before.

Piano roll is fine for easier pieces, but for more complex piano pieces it falls short. It can't really convey complex rhythmical information (like polyrhythms, or when to play rubato) or dynamical information (for which sheet music has a whole glossary of subtly different descriptors besides the usual pp, sfz, cresc etc.).

@@Nomen_Latinum I agree, piano roll just really provides the bare minimum tbh and doesn’t really give any info on phrasing, or literally any kind of dynamic that you get with sheet music

And how does piano roll notation convey articulations? Pedals? Dynamics? What if you use rubato? You will have to play along to a video at a constant speed, so good luck sounding like anything other than a robot. Rythms are also way easier to read with traditional music notation, as rythms are easy to recognize. Pieces played at different tempos will also look completely different, even with the same notes. Besides, having a standardized notation system that works for nearly all instruments is great If you aren't able to learn sheet music, you definitely don't have the dedication to properly learn an instrument.

@@ragnarockerbunny interesting point. But as a classical guitarist I can read sheet music faster than tab most of the times. If most of your source of learning new music comes from sheet music it becomes second nature. Of course there are cases in which sheet music can be awkward but that is not the case for most of the classical guitar repertoire.

that emoji looks so old school... i like it.

I feel like Adam did another video on this like 18 months ago.

I started learning guitar through rocksmith. and it's amazing, it sparked my interest enough that I began to learn by myself after getting experience there. the notation they use, wich is kind of a "guitar roll", is very easy to read, and allows you to play easy to intermediate music that you never listened before on the fly. I don't even know how to read sheet music, and I can say pretty confidently that it does NOT, in ANY way, makes sheet music obsolete. that's because this "roll" notation is "physical", not "musical". what I mean by that is that it tells you how to position your hands, for example, and not what kind of sound you have to make. this means that it only serves that music in that specific instrument in that specific tuning and in that specific tempo. also, it's not as nearly as intricate as sheets, wich means that there is a LOT of information that just isn't possible to convey through "roll" notation. however, this doesn't mean that sheet makes roll obsolete, too. as I mentioned, it was literally the device that allowed me to have enough interest to explore my instrument without having to pay for lessons or just straight up giving up. each method for each need!

This is a classic example of a “Chesterton's fence” where not understanding the why’s of something, some people want to rip it down, and others wish to leave it “in cases it is needed”. But here their are people that know why it is there. The trick is to find them, and not the over confidant people who think they know and yet do not know.

Lots of other commenters say the same so I don’t think it was bad at all, they said violin is only played in equal temperament when accompanying a TET instrument.

Look at this C# from Hilary Hahn - On Bruch Concerto: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KDJ6Wbzgy3E.html - 1:17 This is intentional to create even more tension to resolve on D. Or the Eb on Zigeunerweisen op.20 By Pablo de Sarasate ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Q8s5SZSS1tI.html Look what Sarah Chang does at 0:11 - This is intentionally low Eb exactly to match the Gipsy vibes on this piece.

​@@rodrigomoraes2305 I'm glad someone brought this up.

Just listen to radio head…

which means it is definitely the same color, it's just that it's not important that it is

yup, kinda... which is also.. kind of not exactly... hmm complicated

Only on equal-tempered keyboards. They are not the same when people sing them by ear or play them by ear on, say, fretless stringed instruments.

@@troldhaugen -- Seems to me the issue isn't the the system of temperament or the limitations of any particular instrument. Instead, to my mind, the issue is Western musical notation, which, in many modern musical contexts, is suboptimal. The problem is that Western notation was designed for a different time and adapted to communicate a rather restricted set of assumptions. The notation's still functionally adequate nowadays (of course, obviously), but alternatives should be more readily available and acceptable.

Well, what he's pointed out in this video is, that's only true for 12-note instruments with a fixed temper. Many instruments (winds(but only kind of), most brass(but only kind of), keyboards, guitar (again, only kind of)) are going to behave like this, and many instruments (voice, trombone, the entire string section) will see a difference and will tend to play those notes differently, so any understanding that only sees them as the same note is going to miss that complexity. Violinists actually have to often make a conscious choice to follow equal temperament, and it sounds a little out of tune to them when they have to play with equal-tempered instruments like a piano soloist. The piano only has one key that plays both Cb and B, so the violinists tune both notes to match the piano. And in the video, you saw him play Cb differently from how he would play B. It's an advanced, nuanced, and highly trained understanding, yes, but when you know all that, or when you play an instrument with no fixed, forced notes, you _genuinely_ aren't playing the same note. The pitch is _actually_ different. Only the western canon and the evolution of equal temperament makes it make sense to call them the same note for some purposes, and it's only a starting point. He also showed you just how out of tune it sounds to play a major chord with the wrong one, relative to the right one. The equal temper version probably sounds fine to you, but the wrong note in just intonation sounds BAD. The two pitches he computes in the just-intonation algebra section are almost a quarter tone apart, judged against equal temperament. The equal temper version falls somewhere in-between. I mean, I'm literally just saying stuff he said in the video, basically; if you watched it, you saw all of this stuff too. I don''t know why I typed this much considering like 80% of people just reply "sure but you're wrong" but it's not even mechanically the same pitch for a single instrument in the orchestra unless you're playing with a piano.

@@TheRealMarauder Exactly right. It seems like a lot of commenters are missing this point.

It's because of how violinists and strings in general play sharps and flats. We take the finger that usually plays the natural note and move up up when sharp, down when flat. Have a violinist play a G# scale vs an Ab scale and there's a good chance that person will use a different fingering. On the A string, the D is played with a third finger (ring finger, strings only have 4 fingers vs a pianist's 5). The E would be played with a 4th finger (pinky). So a D sharp will raise the third finger next to the pinky, and an E flat would lower the pinky next to the ring finger. This has a subtle natural effect of causing flats to be pitched slightly lower than sharps This works really well because it often sounds great when doing things like resolving a maj 7th to an 8ve. So that subtle difference between sharp and flat can add a bit of an edge to some intervals and resolutions. When you say the sharp key sounds "happier" it's because the orchestra is indeed using a higher, thus brighter, pitches overall. The flat kay will conversely have slightly lower pitches. It makes sense that the flat keys would tend to be slightly more muted and also potentially less resonant with the open strings of a violin.

In regards to an orchestra playing with a piano, it usually doesn't matter. The musicians will play as they typically do and it will sound good. In the rare cases where strings might clash with the intonation of a piano, if the musicians are halfway decent they will automatically match intonation with the piano. String players are already constantly matching pitch with each other and other sections of an orchestra (or symphony, or what have you). And if they aren't doing this, then it's the director's job to fix the problem.

@@Miglow This also leads in to why most players of stringed instruments are more comfortable playing in keys featuring multiple sharps vs. most wind players preferring keys in multiple flats (particularly beginners). It's because when you add a finger on a stringed instrument, you shorten the string and the pitch goes up, whereas when you add a finger on a wind instrument, you make the tube longer and the pitch goes down.

Similar idea in a different field: in writing, it's been said that a good first edit might be to strike out every-other-word. My project was to write something without much editing and produce two versions, each the every-other-word of the other, then give them to different people to edit to completion. Then compare the results.

The important point is here is that the distinction is needed because in music notation (notes on a staff) this difference will communicate the function of a note in a melody or harmony from the composer to an experienced player and that can subtly (and often subconsciously) affect how they play that part of the music.

Cb and B are the same tone only, and only if, you're playing in 12TET. As someone in the HIP world, I never play in 12TET anymore, despite it being the norm in the larger music industry. There's so many delightful temperaments out there that deserve to be experimented with in modern music, I feel, and once you start looking into non equally tempered temperaments, that distinction of pitch and note becomes much more obvious than it is in 12TET. Plus then saying things like "E major is joyful", "B minor is patient" ect. actually starts making sense, because in 12TET all keys sound the same, because the interval between pitches is always the same.

@@Loweene_Ancalimon I 100% agree. But since most people are unfamiliar with anything beyond 12tet it's not really a useful argument to bring up when explaining enharmonics to a more casual musician lol. I do wish more modern- especially pop musicians/composers would experiment more with different modes and tunings and stuff instead of just going with the same four chords over and over again. It sells well but my soul just can't take it anymore. It's the result of music being sold as a product rather than a craft and it makes me sad just thinking about where the industry is headed.

just because an Ab minor is Ab, Cb, and Eb doesnt mean that Cd and B should be seen as different notes, it only means that there are different terms for the same pitch. you can think of them as the same note without being ignorant of when its a B and when its a Cb. this arguement, as a consept, is bad faith. it draws a pointless line in the sand by inventing a reason why your smarter then someone else at music edit: btw, if youre not using 12tet, then all that means is this point is even more pointless, because you wont even have a B if you already have a Cb to begin with

@@superhuman33 Thank you for adding to my point. Cb and B are both used contextually when notating music. With emphasis on "notating". When we talk about music we can use Cb and B almost interchangeably since we're talking about the sounding pitch, which is the "same" and no one will probably point it out. However, they shouldn't be used interchangeably in music notation since the notated Cb has very different properties than the notated B. As in Ab minor (Cb) and G major (B). If one wants to dive even deeper and talk about voice leading properties and such of the different notations, you can describe the differences even further but in all honesty, who would care. This shit only matters if you're notating music (or if you play an instrument where intonation matters). Sorry for not clearing this up earlier!

@@Loweene_Ancalimon Cb and B are the same if the perfect fifth is exactly 700 cents in size. If it is less than 700¢, B is lower; if it is greater than 700¢, B is higher.

Well, in the context of an instrument with pre-defined pitches, yes. But for something like a violin, trombone, or a human voice, there is definitely a more tangible difference between the notes.

I only use B# major when writing music, consisting of (using Adam's "traditional" need to use each letter once) B#, C##, D##, E#, F##, G##, A##. Sight readers love me!

@@noonehere0987 C## = Cx

I know you're trolling, but the short answer is: No, and although the specific scales used to explain the difference would change, the explanation would be fundamentally the same as B vs. C♭.

@@noonehere0987 I can't imagine sight readers even bother showing up to read it or stay in their seat once they see it.

No - the B♯ in a G♯ major triad is lower than the C in an F major triad.

this is a pretty good comparison. show your work matters. like if you need to find the determinant of a 4x4 matrix by hand, it might just be 1. that might be the same 1 as the area using a multivariable integral for a closed figure, but the information and purpose is different

Exactly. V=IR, R=V/I, and I=V/R are 3 different ways of saying Ohm's Law. Case closed!

I am 5'12" tall and 360 months old.

3 - 2 represents some kind of process based on the operation. 1 represents, well, however you want to abstract the number, let's say the set containing the empty set. They are not the same thing any more than a pound of feathers and a pound of iron having equal weight means that feathers are the same as iron. They just equal each other in terms of a quantity. Equality does NOT mean the things are the same, just that there is some equivalency between them. This is true of all mathematical equivalence relations. An isomorphism doesn't mean the two things are the same even if it means they have some sameness under some narrow perspective of what the things are.

I disagree that they're the same thing, but they are the same value. But don't want to get in to it too much tbh..

Very cool.

In the case of those instruments, there is no reason to call them the same note.

@@troldhaugen it's not that simple, listen to the opening of Haydn's C major violin concerto. Where you have to place the C on the first two chords of the solo part is about 1mm difference and its literally the same chord twice, just different inversions. First chord is tuned to open G and first finger D (an E), with the C on the A string (2nd finger). The second chord has the same C tuned to an open E string, and you gotta move that 2nd finger what feels like so far up it's wild. It's the perfect example of the compromise of equal temperament. Modern performers just slam heaps of vibrato so you can't hear the harmony 😂.