Why no B#/Cb or E#/Fb ?

[Hurricane Ramon]

Originally Posted by mtnByker

Something that I have never understood is why there is no B#/Cb note and why no E#/Fb.

OK, I know that C can be thought of as B# and B can be seen as Cb, and that the same is true for E and F, but why in the entire scale is there no note between these two pairs. and only these two pairs of notes?

There must be some logical reason why it is structured this way...

It's in the frequency structure -

Micro Tonality is what your are talking about . Western scale is measure in twelve half step tones .
Microtonal is much more divided



Splitting hairs is the easy way to think of it .

one example :


Another :



Balinese :





EZ :

HR

[Mr. Jelly]

I haven't read the thread. Scales evolved from the sounds. It is a way to convey to others about musical sounds. Scales were not invented to create music.

[FwL]

The half steps in the natural scale came from stacking diatonic tetrachords.

The names of the notes came from taking the pitches of the Hypodorian mode and giving them a letter designation from low to high; A B C D E F G.


Combine those two factors and you get a natural scale with a half step between B-C and E-F.

.

[TBman]

This is an old thread, but a good question. The scales didn't just pop up in someone's head overnight. Its a collection of minds over years. It has order and is well thought out.

[vindibona1]

=mtnByker;1757190]Something that I have never understood is why there is no B#/Cb note and why no E#/Fb.

OK, I know that C can be thought of as B# and B can be seen as Cb, and that the same is true for E and F, but why in the entire scale is there no note between these two pairs. and only these two pairs of notes?

There must be some logical reason why it is structured this way...

I read all the responses and curiously not a one gave you the correct answer. ALL THOSE NOTES DO EXIST! . As you come to learn more about music you will know that in the key of C# the 7th, leading tone would in fact be a B#. Sonically it would sound the same as a C natural but would be written as a B#. Same thing for E# in the key of F#. As for Fb and Cb, they would be used more occasionally, usually in descending chromatic where E natural or B natural wouldn't fit properly into the key (specific examples escape me for the moment).

Additionally we sometimes see double-sharps and double-flats which would be used when appropriate for the melodic line, usually in keys with many sharps or flats (I'll see if I can find examples when I'm not so tired).

[Erithon]

Originally Posted by vindibona1

I read all the responses and curiously not a one gave you the correct answer.

I'm not so sure. It seems to me that the OP 1) understands enharmonic equivalency and 2) isn't asking about micotonality or quarter tones.
Rather, the question is about nomenclature: the reason, in a given context, for certain note names and not others. At least, this is how I understood it and answered.

[M Hayden]

Stuart Isacoff’s book “Temperament” may be worth the time to read as it addresses some of the questions in the thread.

[vindibona1]

Originally Posted by Erithon

I'm not so sure. It seems to me that the OP 1) understands enharmonic equivalency and 2) isn't asking about micotonality or quarter tones.
Rather, the question is about nomenclature: the reason, in a given context, for certain note names and not others. At least, this is how I understood it and answered.

Here is his entire initial post:

"Something that I have never understood is why there is no B#/Cb note and why no E#/Fb.

OK, I know that C can be thought of as B# and B can be seen as Cb, and that the same is true for E and F, but why in the entire scale is there no note between these two pairs. and only these two pairs of notes?

There must be some logical reason why it is structured this way... "

I can understand why you may have understood the question that way, but the question, other than from a notational sense makes no sense. His question refers to enharmonics. Therefore there can be nothing between a a B# and C or Cb and B because each pair are the same notes. I don't see any question referring to microtonality.

[Hotspur]

It makes sense if you think about how the 12-tone chromatic scale developed.

It wasn't like they had these 12 notes and were figuring out how to name them.

They already had something very similar to our 7-note minor and major scales. There were instruments that were designed for them. Other scales, too.

The problem that 12 notes were trying to solve was, essentially, how to get instruments made for different scales to be able to play together.

If I have a seven-note instrument that is fretted for Aeolian (let's call it that, to not get bogged down) (and scale length, strings, etc, want it to be strung somewhere around A), and you have a seven-note instrument that's fretted for Ionian (and wants to be tuned somewhere around E) we're really limited in what we can do together. We only have three notes in common on our two instruments!

Fret one of the instruments for 12 notes, and viola - they can play together! But I still want to talk about the A Aeolian, so we don't want to change the name of every note - we still have all this music written for A Aeolian and a series of traditions built around that 7-note scale. The system of sharps and flats makes that translation simple.

Our musical language wasn't designed, top-down. It evolved, over time, to incorporate new musical instruments and new musical ideas. A lot of things that seem arbitrary, random, or sub-optimal happened because it was a simple, logical choice from where the language was to where it is now.

[Erithon]

Originally Posted by vindibona1

I can understand why you may have understood the question that way, but the question, other than from a notational sense makes no sense. His question refers to enharmonics. Therefore there can be nothing between a a B# and C or Cb and B because each pair are the same notes. I don't see any question referring to microtonality.

My mention of microtonality was regarding other responses in this thread (not yours) because you had commented on reading the whole thread. I'm sorry that was confusing!

Here's my thinking: it seems to me that the statement

Originally Posted by mtnByker

I know that C can be thought of as B# and B can be seen as Cb, and that the same is true for E and F

shows the OP understands enharmonics, at least basically, while the following statement

Originally Posted by mtnByker

but why in the entire scale is there no note between these two pairs. and only these two pairs of notes?

--especially the "and only these two pairs"--moves the question from one of enharmonic equivalency to nomenclature. I concur with you that it's a notional question, but on a more fundamental level than enharmonics. The question is admittedly phrased in such a way as to ask about enharmonics, but the what is really being asked is why there is a half step between those two sets of pitches and only those two.

[Nailpicker]

I remember asking one of my very knowledgeable guitar teachers questions similar to the OP's.

Questions that beg questions. Things seemingly obtuse and without adequate understanding or explanation to me and my, at the time, young mind. Quite often his reply was simply that much of western music was codified by monks hundreds of years ago. They'd simply and sometimes seemingly arbitrarily decided, "let's do it this way, or call it this or that" and make it so.

I don't know how much of that is, or isn't true, but for seemingly arcane knowledge and questions he convinced me to simply accept it for what it is and play guitar.

One can over intellectualize anything and spin in circles and circular explanations.

[JimCA]

Here's a paper written by a nerd:

https://arxiv.org/html/1202.4212v1

It resonates with me. Talks about the brain grooves on and has special circuitry for hearing the harmonic series.

Root frequency = RF. Harmonic series = RF * 1 + RF * 2 + RF * 3 + RF * 4 + RF * 5 + ...

RF * 1 = root
RF * 2 = octave
RF * 3 = perfect fifth !!
RF * 4 = 2 octaves
RF * 5 = major third !!
RF * 6 = 3 octaves

Brain thinks it recognizes harmonic series even when pieces missing. E.g.,

root major chord = root + perfect fifth + major third, sounds nice, kinda like harmonic series.

And so the 12 tone scale is somewhat natural to the brain and not necessarily cultural.

(It's a nerdy paper. )