Absolutely.

Nobody ever expects (extreme case)

Itzhak Perlman to stand.

Personally, I'd be a happy audience if a flautist sat on a barstool, as many guitarists tend to do.

Now, performing while on a unicycle...

I've never seen a flutist sit, but I've also not seen very many flute soloists.

What I have seen is plenty of soloists that do sit, so you'd be in good company!

And keep in mind that cellists, pianists, harpists, tubists, etc.

sit.

Why should you feel out of place for sitting?

Do whatever helps you perform the best!

Orchestral flautists sit the whole time

so it's clearly possible to play the flute to a high standard while sitting.

It's the 21st century and people are used to legislation that requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities.

This doesn't sound like an employment situation but the same principles and expectations apply.

There's no reason you shouldn't sit, and every reason that you should.

The audience wants to hear you at your best.

If you were performing in an ensemble of 3 or more people - a flute quartet for example - you would not think twice would you; you would always sit.

So its not really an unusual way to perform.

And even if it were you are still free to do whatever you need to feel comfortable and perform at your best.

So go for it, and good luck with the performance

It's always acceptable to be seated.

Standing is more conventional for a single soloist, but a group of performers would be seated.

The only advantage of standing would be diaphragm and breath control.

That isn't an insurmountable obstacle whilst playing.

When I was playing (and I'm older than you are), allowances were always made for medical situations.

I never saw any of my fellow flutists standing and playing with crutches.

But be careful.

One of the reasons to stand includes the fact that it's simply better for breath control—and the flute uses more air than any orchestral instrument except for the tuba.

When seated, as with the rest of the orchestra, you can still fill your lungs completely with good breath control, but you have to take care to sit with good posture that facilitates breathing.

Sitting on a "bar chair" might allow you to breathe easily, but then again it might not.

And in compensating for the extra height you might put some other part of your body out of whack or off balance.

At which point I'll add that if you think you have problems now, try falling off a high chair in front of an audience!

Conventionally, soloists stand.

So what?

Do you honestly feel that any objection would be raised to one sitting for medical reasons?

Of course not!

So I guess your post is really about getting reassurance and recognition for your achievement.

No problem.

Well done!

Hope

it goes well.

Good luck!

(Will that do?

You're welcome.)

Question: I am a 60 year old flutist and I am about to perform a humble concert in my community.  I have plantar fasciitis in my left foot, and I wonder if it is acceptable for me to sit on a high chair (like bar chair height) instead of stand for my performance?  Does any one have any thoughts? Have you ever seen anything like this?

Can a flute soloist sit?

Orchestral flautists sit the whole time, so it's clearly possible to play the flute to a high standard while sitting. If you were performing in an ensemble of 3 or more people - a flute quartet for example - you would not think twice would you;  you would always sit. Standing is more conventional for a single soloist, but a group of performers would be seated.   . One of the reasons  to  stand includes the fact that it's simply better for breath control—and the flute uses more air than any orchestral instrument except for the tuba. When seated, as with the rest of the orchestra, you can still fill your lungs completely with good breath control, but you have to take care to sit with good posture that facilitates breathing.

Orchestral flautists sit the whole time. Standing is more conventional for a single soloist, but a group of performers would be seated. The flute uses more air than any orchestral instrument except for the tuba. When seated, as with the rest of the orchestra, you can still fill your lungs completely with good breath control. But you have to take care to sit with good posture that facilitates breathing.


As other answers have pointed out, there are advantages to the player in having notes in pitch order, rather than arranged by consonance; it probably makes things easier for instrument builders too!

However, the idea of placing consonant notes together isn't crazy at all.

In fact there are other instrument layouts that do something like this.

One example is the Stradella system, used on accordions, which uses columns of buttons arranged in a circle of fifths.

Many 2D isomorphic keyboard layouts are arranged so that consonant notes are adjacent in some directions.

Modern electronic instruments can often be configured so that the keys only play the notes of a certain scale.

and of course there are other instruments, such as the guitar, that have completely different layouts;

one justification for the standard guitar tuning is that it makes major thirds, fourths, and fifths very easy to reach.

So the idea of placing consonant notes together is fine; it's just that the piano chooses a different set of advantages that you get from doing it a different way!

Each piano key is one semi tone up(right) or down(left) in pitch from its adjacent keys.

Your example might work if you only ever wanted to play in the key of C major but could you imagine trying to learn to build triads on a keyboard that is laid out in such a way as you suggest?

Currently it is perfectly suited for playing in any key very easily.

One reason is for ease of play, as mentioned by the other answers.

But on a mechanical keyboard instrument, the keys of various pitch correspond to strings of various lengths, and it is way easier to build the the steel frame if the strings are sorted by length like organ pipes, rather than alternating all over the place.

Consonant in which tuning or scale? Consonant in which respect and harmonic function?

That way lies madness or the bandoneon, an instrument having a different layout for left hand (accompaniment) and right hand (melody, at some point of time for a fixed scale but with chromatic notes grown like cancer all around the regular part) and for pushing (original layout for the major scale somewhere in the middle) and pulling (original layout for the dominant of the major scale).

It is reputed to be one of the hardest instruments to master, and it still has quite fewer actual notes than a piano in spite of having about double the sound "locations" (a location being a physical button but counted twice for pushing and pulling since the notes are different).

And yet its evolution (during which it accreted more and more buttons) started on the premise of creating an instrument simpler to play than a fully chromatic one.

It certainly would work - but only in the key suggested - or any other key using that key's harmonic set.

Moving to any other key to play in would be a nightmare.

It's bad enough for beginners now, with very few patterns being capable of simple movement to other keys,(without changing black/white key patterns) but with a key specific setting as you suggest, it's almost like going back in time to when harpsichords only sounded good in one key - but that was their tuning, so a different reason.

So, basically, no.

I guess just about every possible idea has been used with reference to where notes are found on pianos (and other instruments), and what we end up with is the best available - even though often that's a compromise.

Question: Why is the order of keys/notes on a piano C,C#,D,D#,E,F and so on as opposed to in order of consonance like C,G,E,B and so on?

Why are notes ordered like they are on a piano?

Probably just about every possible idea has been used with reference to where notes are found on pianos (and other instruments), and what we end up with is the best available - even though often that's a compromise. On a mechanical keyboard instrument, the keys of various pitch correspond to strings of various lengths, and it is way easier to build the the steel frame if the strings are sorted by length like organ pipes, rather than alternating all over the place.

Finally that nearly any relevant definition is to where notes are found on pianos (and other instruments) and what we arrive at is a compromise.

Modern instrument keys can often be configured to only play notes of a certain scale. Other instruments, such as the guitar, have completely different layouts. Standard guitar tuning makes major thirds, fourths, and fifths very easy to reach.

On a mechanical keyboard instrument, the keys of various pitch correspond to strings of various lengths. It is way easier to build the the steel frame if the strings are sorted by length

I assume that nearly any relevant definition is to where notes are found on pianos (and other instruments) and what we arrive at is a compromise.


Theoretically, this could be done by adapting the techniques used in a vocoder .

A vocoder works by measuring the amplitude of different frequency bands in a modulator signal (e.g. vocals), and then using that information to filter a carrier signal (e.g. a synthesizer sound), giving it a similar frequency spectrum as the modulator signal.

If you inverted the connections, you could control the low frequencies in the carrier signal with the high frequencies in the modulator signal, and vice versa.

In fact, patching the connections in a non-linear way was a feature of some analog vocoders, like the EMS Vocoder 5000 from 1975 and the Moog 16-Channel Vocoder from 1979.

Moog

16-Channel Vocoder (1979) with frequency band switching patch bay (image from vintagesynth.com )

To achieve completely frequency-mirrored audio, you'd have to use white noise (which contains all frequencies) as the carrier signal, and you would need to have a lot more frequency bands than the dozen or so of a classic vocoder.

Software vocoders like Reason's BV512 can have hundreds of bands, but you'd probably need thousands to achieve anything "realistic".

Even then, the result would not be music with mirrored note pitches.

Every sound would have its component harmonics mirrored, and the result would be inharmonic and unrecognizable.

Harmonicity of frequency inversion vs. pitch inversion

While it is true that Frequency Inversion would preserve the distance between the harmonics in a note, the result would only be harmonic if the mirror frequency was itself a harmonic of the note.

If you mirrored A4 (440Hz) around 2200Hz, you'd get these harmonics:

HARM FREQ

Finv

Hinv 1 440 3960 9 2 880 3520 8 3 1320 3080 7 4 1760 2640 6 5 2200 2200 5 6 2640 1760 4 7 3080 1320

3 8 3520 880 2 9 3960

440 1 10 4400 0 0

However, if you played a C5 (523.25Hz) mirrored around 2200Hz, you'd get these harmonically unrelated frequencies: HARM FREQ

Finv 1 523.25 3876.75 2

3353.50 3 1569.75 2830.25 4

2093.00 2307.00

5 2616.25 1783.75 6

3139.50 1260.50 7

737.25 8 4186.00 214.00 9

-309.25 10 5232.50

So the result would only sound harmonic for some notes, much like the way in which the related effect of ring modulation sounds harmonic if there is a simple ratio between the two signals being modulated.

I think what you're asking for is flipping the frequency spectrum of an audio file.

You could attempt that by: Converting the audio file into a spectrogram bitmap

Flipping the spectrogram bitmap file

Resynthesizing the spectrogram bitmap into an audio file.

You should probably use the linear frequency scale for spectrograms.

The results will be very strange - you will inevitably flip not only the notes themselves, but also the harmonic series of all notes, which is not something that can occur in nature.

You can try this process with a free program called ARSS: http://arss.sourceforge.net/download.shtml

Yes it can be done digitally, and someone's already done it, and written a blog post about how they did it, and uploaded some examples https://griffonagedotcom.wordpress.com/2017/06/08/turning-audio-upside-down-with-octave-inversion/

William Tell Overture sounds absolutely incredible.

Posting this as an answer because I think it's better than the other examples given so far and a comment will get buried in the many other comments and lost.

No, there is no single-pass audio process that can invert notes or melodies.

Something like Celemony Melodyn Studio could get you started by analyzing all the notes, and then maybe you could embark on a lengthy MIDI inversion process and then try to use the inverted MIDI to re-arrange the audio in Melodyn.

That could take a long time.

From a mathematical perspective, it might be doable using Fourier series .(Mono)

sound is just a mathematical function, basically saying how the speaker should move.

The Fourier series tells you how much there are of each frequency.

One could do some type of inverting around say, A, (440hz),and map each frequency 440+F to 440-F, or, as a function, f(F) =

880-F.That is, the coefficient of cos(n x) is mapped to the coefficient of cos((880-n)x).

If this makes sense from a musical perspective, I don't know.

As people mentioned, one should perhaps consider some log scaling.

It is indeed possible, using some old-school analog techniques.

But probably not practical unless you are very much an electronics type.

The principle sounds a lot like the vocoder described by @Your Uncle Bob, although not nearly as complicated.

Basically the audio is subtracted from a fixed carrier frequency and the difference is what you hear.

As pitch goes up, the resulting pitch goes down.

One possible flaw is that the chosen carrier frequency can add an offset to the pitch, and if there's an fixed offset added to the pitch,then the intervals won't be correct.

Then it sounds even stranger, because the harmonics (overtones) won't have the proper intervals, either.

Also consider that the overtones will be lower , not higher, adding to the strangeness.

That much strangeness probably makes you want to try it!

The first time I tried this was using a pair of ham radios (I won't explain that one).

The second one was a project from an electronics magazine, effectively four diodes (the modulator) and two or three audio transformers.

I think this was supposed to be a "voice scrambler".

I have heard things called "scramblers" that appeared to do the same thing.

I think in today's world, it will be a lot more practical to use some of the computer-aided techniques cited in the other answers.

But I had to point out that long ago, good ol' analog had its own bag of tricks.

This smacks of negative harmony , and I highly recommend

you read that post.

It's very informative, and one of the processes involved in that discussion is essentially inverting a song about an arbitrary axis, which seems to be what you want.

However, though this is possible, I don't know of any software to do it for you, and generally this is a (rather rare) conceptual device used by musicians and applied to music, not just an algorithm that gets applied to existing sheet music to get a new result.

Question: If I had a recording of some music, I could play it backwards. This is pretty simple.  If I had some music recorded, could I flip it around a note like in this image? If possible, how does that work?

Can you turn a recording upside-down?

S0: Theoretically, turning a recording upside down could be done by adapting the techniques used in a  vocoder .  A vocoder works by measuring the amplitude of different frequency bands in a modulator signal (e.g. vocals), and then using that information to filter a carrier signal (e.g. a synthesizer sound), giving it a similar frequency spectrum as the modulator signal. In reality, it can be done digitally, and someone's already done it, and written a blog post about how they did it, and uploaded some examples  https://griffonagedotcom.wordpress.com/2017/06/08/turning-audio-upside-down-with-octave-inversion/. However, though this is possible, I don't know of any software to do it for you, and generally this is a (rather rare) conceptual device used by musicians and applied to music, not just an algorithm that gets applied to existing sheet music to get a new result.

It can be done by adapting the techniques used in a  vocoder and  digitally as well.

Theoretically, this could be done by adapting the techniques used in a  vocoder .

It can be done digitally, and someone's already done it, and written a blog post about how they did it, and uploaded some examples  https://griffonagedotcom.wordpress.com/2017/06/08/turning-audio-upside-down-with-octave-inversion/


The textbook Music Notation: A Manual of Modern Practice by Gardner Read answers your first question as follows: When slurs are placed over a passage that ends in a tied note, the slur sign should extend as far as the second note of the tie, rather than end of the first note.

The principle involved should be obvious; the breath of the singer or wind instrumentalist, the bow of a string player, cannot stop at the first note if it is to be prolonged by a tie.

Music Notation: A Manual of Modern Practice, 267

So this would indicate that figure 1.1 is most appropriate.

Unlike what some of the answers and comments state, there is a reason why one could include a slur within a slur (1.1).

In jazz, it is common to combine "licks" into slurred sections.

I play tenor saxophone and frequently encounter passages like that (one example that comes to mind is the Pink Panther theme ).

According to my teacher, it means that the first note within the sub-slur is slightly accented (through staccato-legato tonguing or a slight embouchure change).

1.2 looks wrong to me, but I can see how it could be used as well.

If I were to see something like that, I would put more emphasis on C compared to 1.1 (in the case of saxophone, I would clearly tongue the note instead of doing staccato-legato tonguing or adjusting the embouchure).

2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 are all valid, depending on the intended message.

In 2.1, the first C is sustained and the second is played for 1/4 of the bar.

In 2.2, the first C is played for 1/4 of the bar and the second one is sustained.

In 2.3, both C's are sustained at the discretion of the performer/conductor.

I'd go generally with 2.2.

The fermata position is often dictated by what else is going on in the music.

If everybody is to come off at the same time after the pause, then put it on the last note.

But if there's something that needs to happen before everyone counts the crotchet a tempo

(eg a bit of recitative, a breath, a bit of shady side-eye) then put it on the first note (as in 2.1).

Ms Gould has a good deal to say on fermatas, but sadly declines to tell us where not to put them.

Number 1.1 and 1.2 would mean the same thing.

At least I would play it exactly the same way.

Number 1.2 is how it would most often be written.

Number 2.1 would mean you hold a fermata on the 4th beat in the 1st bar and then continue playing the C in the next bar.

Number 2.2 would mean you hold a fermata on the 1st beat in the second bar.

Number 2.3 would mean you hold a fermata on the 4th beat in the 1st bar and when continuing the C you hold another fermata on the 1st beat in the second bar.

So what matters is when do you want the fermata?

I don’t see a difference between examples 1.1.

and 1.2.

As you say there are only tied notes and no phrase slurs all notes have to be played legato.

The other 3 examples mean each something different.

You can’t say that one of them is wrong.

If this a solo without other musicians and no conductor

you can’t hear any difference.

I would prefer to notate the pattern 2.2.

But if there are other instruments or a conductor or this is an accompaniment of an act or a soundtrack of a movie - the fermatas will have all a specific meaning (as notated) note = a tempo, 2.

note = hold note = hold, 2.

note =

a tempo note and 2. are both hold

Question: I would like to ask two quick things.    If you notate a slur (legato, not a phrase slur) on a tied note, will this include the tie (1.1) or not (1.2)?  If you notate a fermata on a tied note and want them to hold the note longer than notated, which of the three examples is correct?

Legato & Fermata notation on tied notes

The fermata position is often dictated by what else is going on in the music.  If everybody is to come off at the same time after the pause, then put it on the last note. But if there's something that needs to happen before everyone counts the crotchet a tempo.


Here's another way to view it which might help.

Imagine that the music is being by four instruments or voices which can only play one note at a time.

Maybe a string quartet or four singers (SATB).

Let's imagine a string quartet: violin 1, violin 2, viola, and cello.

Each has a part with just one line of your music.

Violin 1 has the tune: the top line and plays those short notes.

Violin 2 and the viola have long notes.

The first for each lasting the whole first two bars.

The cello plays single beat notes.

Now, back to the piano: you need to replicate that effect by yourself.

So, as Tim says, you need to hold the initial E and B in the right hand for two bars with two fingers while the remaining fingers play the tune.

Sometimes, you can use the right pedal to get the held effect without actually holding down the notes but not in this case as it would mess up the top line.

It's in 3/4, and those notes on the treble clef with the tails going down are held for each full bar - all three beats (dotted minims).

And because they're also tied to the same notes in the next bar, they get held on for another three beats - six in all.

So while you hold those keys down with thumb and index or middle finger, the other fingers of r.h. are playing the tails up notes, the first of which (a very short note duration)

is played at the same time as the dotted minims.

In general, these notes with the stems facing the other direction indicated that it's a >second voice<

If you have any notation program, just look up how you can change a voice from voice 1 to voice two.

This example above is what you will get.

It basically just means, that you have to see both voices as an independent (melody) line.

Sometimes you're able to play the second voice as well

and it's just written like that to make it look easier on paper for you.

If you would write it in just one voice, you would get way too many unnecessary ties and it would look like this: In this case you would hold down the B and E two full bars with your thumb and index finger, while playing the top line with your other three fingers for example.

Sometimes these lines are written for multiple players, like a piano duo.

In this case Piano 1 would play the top line (Voice one) and Piano two the second one (Voice two).

As for how to play them, it's much easier (conceptually) than it might seem.

Ignore the notes with the stems facing up; you know how to play the two bottom notes.

Now ignore the two bottom notes; you know how to play the notes with the stems facing up.

Now do both at once.

Hold your finders down on the longer notes and play the shorter notes meanwhile :)

Question: I'm learning music theory on my own and thus, I encounter some difficulties in understanding them.This is one of those difficulties.What do those notes (circled in red) mean as each of them has different values? How should I play them on the piano? How are they related with tempo?

What do different value notes on the same line mean?

In general, notes with the stems facing the other direction indicate that it's a second voice. It basically just means, that you have to see both voices as an independent (melody) line. If it was written in just one voice, you would get way too many unnecessary ties.

Generally, these notes with the stems facing the other direction indicated that it's a >second voice. It basically just means, that you have to see both voices as an independent (melody) line. If you would write it in just one voice, you would get too many unnecessary ties.


You can and (I hope) will sing wherever your range is comfortable.

If it's where usual baritone or tenors sing, then so be it.

What everyone needs to do is find the key for each particular song you want to sing.

The key that suits your voice, for each song.

It's not going to be the same key for every song, just because it happens to be D for several!

Most people have a two to two and a half octave range, roughly speaking.

Some can extend to more, although the quality at each end may suffer.

Karen Carpenter, I believe, had a four octave range - so could sing down where you are, but easily into soprano and more.

Useful when multi-tracking!

Work with what you have been given, there are at least a million songs out there that will suit your voice, and if you sing in a choir, the lower register of your voice will always be welcome.

It's not all that unusual.

Timbre is also part of the equation so even though there is some overlap between male and female voice ranges, "crossovers" in choirs tend to be rare unless nothing else could possibly work.

In all-male and all-female choirs, the appreciated ranges at the "wrong end" tend to be quite more.

Practice helps accessing registers and ranges that feel less natural and thus can make choir and ensemble work more accessible.

For chanson-like solo singing, a low female voice responding well in chest registers will be very much sought after.

So not much to worry about, assuming that your usefully accessible range will, after training, be large enough to be musically useful.

There is an actual name for us: We are typically classed as contra_alto (not the same as alto).

Generally that means female voices of tenor range but baritone included in this as well.

We are rare, the lower the rarer and more wanted!

The alto typically ranges from F3 to F5, where tenor ranges from C3 to C5.

A baritone generally stretches from A2 to A4.

Practice!

Strengthen.

Don't forget, you are young and your voice may still drop (girl voices drop as well, just not as drastically).

I can sing nearly a whole octave lower than in high school

but my higher range is less than it used to be since I stopped practicing.

If you want something flirty, there's always Nina Simone.

Certainly.

'Female baritone' is almost the standard voice type for mature Broadway actresses!

Make sure you ARE singing, not just crooning along with a recording though.

Many self-taught singers never actually 'turn the engine on'.

As a contralto i think of myself as a female bass with a baritone tessitura...

e2 to A4, maybe a little higher on a day when my energy level is high and i can really employ power...

most comfortable in third octave rang.

I take lessons and have learned that with proper technique and the correct key I can adapt most songs to my range.

I think power or air/energy and staying relaxed and just feeling the song is the way to approach the deep female voice...be confident with it...

But it needs practice and its really best

i think to work with a very good vocal trainer and learn music theory...

you will need it to work within various keys..

Yes.

It is not weird at all and that doesn't make you weird.

The way your voice sounds is determined by many factors but the size and shape of your larynx, neck and throat are the most important factors.

When I was in college one of the assistant professors was a female bass and sang in an all woman SATB quartet.

I also sang bass in choir and sometimes she would sing in the bass section with us, lower than the baritones.

Her regular speaking voice wasn't that low, but definitely lower.

Hope this helps.

Question: I know this is probably a weird question but I am just wondering if it is actually possible for other people. I'm currently 15(and a girl) and my comfort zone is around the baritone voice type. Even my speaking voice is deeper than most people, and I've been trying to understand how this is possible in any way.

Is it possible that women can sing baritone songs?

What everyone needs to do is find the  key  for each particular song you want to sing. The  key  that suits your voice, for each song. Timbre is also part of the equation so even though there is some overlap between male and female voice ranges, "crossovers" in choirs tend to be rare unless nothing else could possibly work.

You all need to discover the specific note that corresponds to each song that you want to perform.


I used have sore shoulders after playing for an evening at an Italian restaurant in college.

I finally figured out that it was because I was lifting my shoulder up to high while playing.

In the moment, it seems expressive and natural, but turns out that it's much more natural to let your shoulders relax all the way, sit up straight, and make sure the keyboard is in the right place (I'd say an inch or so above the belly button), making nice 90 degree angles in your elbows and no angles in your wrists.

In order to train myself not to raise my shoulders, before starting to play I would intentionally raise them all the way up to my ears, then relax.

I also used to have tension in my arms, and I would do the same thing: purposely flex them and then let them relax.

This helps you get a baseline of what is relaxed and what is tense.

Then keep reminding yourself throughout playing to relax everything.

Before long, I was playing with much better posture and not having to think consciously about it.

It wasn't an issue to play 3-4 hours (as long as I took a couple of breaks of course!).

Good luck!

Murray McLaughlin is the chairman of the European Piano Teachers Association.

His book on piano technique begins with posture, finger independence, finger strength, flexible wrists and the minimisation of tension in the upper arms, shoulders, neck.

Step 1 is to start with the correct posture - seat height, distance from piano, wrist alignment and back not bent forward and not too upright.

Step 2 is to work on finger independence which is hard to achieve if you have tension.

None of this came easy to me.

The development of good piano technique takes daily practice both on and off the piano.

He advises working with your piano teacher on this.

Other techniques I have examined (such as those of Dorothy Taubman) also focus on reducing or eliminating unwanted tension.

She advises using rotation to help with problem aspects and some sources of tension.

She started from an observation that child prodigies did not have the finger strength yet were able to play advanced piano pieces.

She then asked why adults should not use the same movements.

Her techniques are often used to rehabilitate piano players that have suffered injury even to the point of not playing.

A qualified Taubman teacher will look at how you play and suggest techniques that eliminate the causes of the pains the student experiences.

Both techniques lead to good practice

and I think they can coexist in one person.

I have to agree with the other posters, we need more information as they've suggested.

I can tell you this,

I'm a keyboard / piano player

and I've been playing for 43 years.

My shoulders never come up when I play.

There are only two reasons I can think of for your shoulders to come up or get sore, and both are related to posture.

When I play, I situate myself so that I'm reaching DOWN to the keys, as I'm not very tall, this can sometimes take a bit of doing, but I always play that way

, it keeps my shoulders in a relaxed position and keeps my wrists relaxed as well.

As a result I can play for hours that way !

If that helps , great, but if not, please look for a teacher who can correct what the issue is for you.

I'd have to see you play but my first guess would be that your seat is too low and in order to instinctively get your elbows or wrist higher you are raising your shoulders?

Although, the opposite could be true if you sit too high and you slouch.

Either way, that could be the source of your tension.

Sit at a height where your flexor muscles are slightly higher than the white keys and you can comfortably rest up.

Sit on the very edge of your bench, pushing it backward if you have to.

Sitting on the edge will align everything else.

Make sure that you occasionally exaggerate playing from the elbows, or lean in, to keep back muscles from static loading.

Some people would call that emoting.

My shoulders become stiff and come up when I play.

If they're loose and low before you play, then there's hope.

Try this: play something simple, but with the intention that keeping them loose is more important than playing.

Aim most of your attention at your shoulders, very little at the piano.

When they try to stiffen, immediately loosen them again or -- if that doesn't work -- immediately stop playing.

That eventually retrains your attention.

(I had to do the same with tension in my lower back.)

Question: I have a problem with relaxing my shoulders when playing the piano.My shoulders become stiff and come up when I play.After practicing my shoulders ache.What could be wrong with my posture or technique and how can I prevent this from happening?

Relaxing muscles when playing piano

To relax your shoulders when playing the piano, step 1 is to start with the correct posture - seat height, distance from piano, wrist alignment and back not bent forward and not too upright.  Step 2 is to work on finger independence which is hard to achieve if you have tension. Sit at a height where your flexor muscles are slightly higher than the white keys and you can comfortably rest up.  Sit on the very edge of your bench, pushing it backward if you have to. Make sure that you occasionally exaggerate playing from the elbows, or lean in, to keep back muscles from static loading.

Step 1 is to start with the correct posture - seat height and distance from piano.  Step 2 is to work on finger independence

Sitting on the edge will align everything else.


I think it depends very much on the genre, style, and period of the music.

For some styles, heavy use of rubato is normal and suits the way the music is written, while for others it would spoil the piece.

(Think how bad a rock song would sound if the drummer kept varying the tempo!)

Even within Western classical music, rubato is much more common (and expected) in, say, Romantic pieces than in earlier Baroque.

There are always exceptions, of course, but you must be sensitive to the composer's intentions.

For example, there's a recording of Bach's French suites that I find unlistenable due to the inappropriately-high levels of rubato employed.

The performance style would probably work well for, say, Beethoven, but to me it just sounds terribly out-of-place and vulgar for Bach.

There have been times over the last couple of centuries when people seemed to think that every piece of music should be played the same way!

Thankfully, historically-informed performance has become more popular, and people are at least aware of alternatives.

So it partly comes down to understanding the style of the piece, understanding what the composer intended and how people of the time expected it to be played.

However, it's also down to your judgement and personal taste!

Ultimately, if you're performing the piece, you have the final say, and shouldn't be playing anything you're really not happy with.

Finally, you should certainly be able to play a piece well at a steady pace, without any rubato at all , adding expression in other ways.

Then you can judge how much (if any) is justified.

It's not bad per se , but it's dangerous.

Making this a habit will impair your ability to play with others.

As an expressive device, varying the tempo can be distracting.

(That's why it's notated more rarely than varying the dynamics.)

The exception that proves the rule here is instruments that can't vary dynamics.

When one famous harpsichordist "held on to a fermata, worlds tottered and the sun stopped until she went on to the next phrase."

Depends.

Some people use 'expressive rubato' as an excuse for bad time-keeping.

In particular an excuse for playing the tricky bits slower than the easy bits!

Flexible time is probably a bad idea in a rhythmic groove-based song.

It's almost required in an operatic aria though.

The fact that sometimes a metronome isn't appropriate doesn't make metronomes useless!

As Lawrence said, you are describing "Rubato".

My professor in college recommended playing the piece first at a more "rigid" tempo and then using your own discretion.

You want rubato to feel tasteful enough so that a professional listening in the audience could dictate the rhythm you played without seeing it.

In general, a solo will have more rubato and adding more instruments will tend to make the tempo more rigid.

That being said, conductors with good vision and execution can train a group to perform rubato together.

Some metric flexibility in certain pieces can make them heartstoppingly effective.

The best way for you to convince yourself of this is to listen to some recordings.

I will suggest two: Brahms Sonata for Cello and Piano in E minor, 2nd Movement.

Contrast the Rostropovich & Serkin recording , which has quite has a quite subtle give and take with the meter, and the Maisky & Gililov recording , which shows greater flexibility.

Both are perfectly valid interpretations.

Listen to the whole movement of each.

A prelude of a Bach cello suite.

I will let you listen to several different interpretations yourself to identify one with more flexibility and one with less.

This is an actually precarious question since wanting to hear a particular answer makes it likely that you are in danger of overusing that answer.

Timing is a very strong part of how music is interpreted .

To actually work in that manner, every change must be recognizable as deliberate without acting as a distraction or mask.

So the way to employ timing variations as an expressive ability is a very, very good control over the precision of timing.

This is complicated by your sense of timing getting distracted by actual playing , something that the listeners are not exposed to.

So it usually requires a lot of metronome (or drum computer) work and recording and listening and discipline and good control of the piece (basically, you should be able to play everything 20% faster than at performance speed without falling apart) to effectively employ timing as an expressive device in a tasteful while unambiguous manner.

Changing tempi is part of good performance practice, in my opinion.

As noted above, we do it less in earlier than in more recent music.

But I can't imagine that a player or singer in Bach's day would have resisted imparting a bit of give and take on notes

he or she found particularly engaging.

No one disputes a certain "allowable" range of base tempi for a piece, even for early music, and discreet rubato here

and there is not that different.

Where I do have a major problem with rubato is if one or more notes are held so long that the listener might sense metric change where there is none, as, say, if 3 triplet eighth notes were played or sung such that the last of the three was extended to twice its written length, making the whole sound more like a 2 eighths and a quarter.

Question: When a accelerando and ritardando is not written, is it bad to speed up and slow down where you think it “sounds better?”This seems like against practicing with a steady beat, because it makes a metronome useless.

Is it good practice to speed up and slow down where not written in a song?

Using rubato usually requires a lot of metronome (or drum computer) work and recording and listening and discipline  and  good control of the piece (basically, you should be able to play  everything  20% faster than at performance speed without falling apart) to effectively employ timing as an expressive device in a tasteful while unambiguous manner. Moreover, use of the technique depends on the genre, style and period of the music.

Heavy use of rubato is normal for some styles, but for others it would spoil the piece. Playing timing is an expressive device in a tasteful while unambiguous manner. It usually requires a lot of metronome (or drum computer) work and recording and listening and discipline  and  good control of the piece


Without. Point blank.

Lights look fun to start with, but a beginner will end up watching them rather than learning to read.

Note, you can usually switch them off, so you don't have to choose a keyboard that doesn't have them.

I have no recommendations on mobile teaching apps, I've never used them.

Don't bother with lights.

The player will be forever chasing them.

In fact, for a few weeks I recommend not trying to read dots either.

Just get used to the instrument, what it can do, and have fun.

I would hope that pound for pound, a keyboard without lights would have other, better features.

Most will have speakers or a headphone port.

Buying pre-loved will generally get you a far better instrument (my opinion!).

And DON'T write letter names on the keys - or even use stickers!

Its only my opinion, but my observations in the music store are such that they lead me to think the lights on these keyboards serve one purpose, to sell keyboards.

I've never known any teachers that use them to teach with, and I've never met anyone that actually learned to play music that way, so in my opinion the lights are a sales gimmick but an effective one.

Whether you wish to learn to play by ear, or you are interested in learning to sight read and play that way, I can't think of a way that the lights will help a person become a musician either as a solo player or a band member.

But maybe some one knows an application I haven't thought of myself.

Your question contains a crucial misunderstanding in the two words

piano keyboard

The defining feature of a piano keyboard is weighted keys, emulating the hammer mechanism of a real piano.

Most teachers recommend learning with weighted keys, because otherwise kids get used to keys which take little-to-no force to press, and this makes it significantly harder for them to move to playing an actual piano.

As far as I can see, none of those keyboards have weighted keys.

Keyboards with weighted keys are a bit more expensive.

So you need to think more carefully about how far you think your kids will go with playing the keyboard.

If it's just going to be a toy they mess around with, then of course go as cheap as possible.

But if they're going to be playing it more seriously and getting lessons, then get something which is a proper musical instrument to support their learning.

All the various gimmicks to plug in or light stuff up are just that - gimmicks. Don't bother.

Lighed keys are unnecessary and counterproductive.

For some serious piano learning an 88 key with hammer action is essential.

Entry level digital pianos made by Yamaha, Kawai, Casio, Roland, Korg are available, but you have to double the budget.

A Casio CDP-S100 is the cheapest option at the 360 Euro price and could run on alkaline batteries.

Roland FP10, Yamaha P45 and Korg B1 are all around of the 400 euro level.

But for a first run a smaller 61 key keyboard with VELOCITY SENSITIVE KEYS is the minimum baseline.

Even with a spring action the speed of the key press will affect the sound volume.

Going for a Casio CTK 3500, or a CT-X700 a Yamaha CPT360 or PSR-E360 could be an idea.

They have rhythms and nice sounds that could make more interesting the thing.

Another aspect of the lighted keyboard is that doesn't help to get the ear, because instead of associate a sound to a key it associates a light to a key, and anyway music teachers tells that looking at the keyboard

it's not a good idea, one has to train the finger to find the correct distance.

Actually one of my piano teacher made me practice with a cardboard kiding the keys sometimes.

So is important to have standard sized keys.

Sight-reading is paramount to learn to play music especially classical, as with solfege, but lighted keys here are steering in another direction.

In my opinion, you should not consider buying a keyboard with key lights.

The lights do not help in any way to learn how to play keyboard.

I would even say they distract from learning because your child will only watch the light patterns and try to "catch" the right keys in the right moment.

It will not understand the connection between keys and corresponding tones, nor which fingers should be used to play melodies without cramping the hand.

Question: For my kid, we want to buy a first piano keyboard. There are nice options under 200 EUR.  But now we have a dilemma:   do we need helping lights in keys  do we need to connect to Tablet (we don't have iPad, but Android)?   In range around Yamaha PSR-E363, Casio CTK-3500, or with lights: Yamaha EZ-220 (or some better), Casio L or LK series.

Would you recommend a keyboard for beginners with or without lights in keys for learning?

Lighted keys are unnecessary and counterproductive. Most teachers recommend learning with weighted keys, because otherwise kids get used to keys which take little-to-no force to press, and this makes it significantly harder for them to move to playing an actual piano.

Teachers recommend learning with weighted keys, otherwise kids get used to keys which take little-to-no force to press. Lighted keys are unnecessary and counterproductive.


Bartok did use some unusual key signatures for such scales.

I don't know if it's a good or bad idea; much depends on how easy it is to read such a piece.

I would probably just find the major or minor key signature that minimized (or nearly minimized) the number of accidentals and use that.

One might still change key signatures if parts of the composition are transposed.

People can sight chromatically modified pieces pretty well.

Short sections in a dominant key are not always resignatured (if that's not a word, it is now.)

Baroque signatures for minor keys are not hard to read and these seem a bit weird at times.

It's 2019; feel free to alter traditional notational norms in a way that's most fitting for your music.

Many composers have used non-traditional key signatures that don't follow the standard order of sharps and flats.

And I've seen key signatures that use all kinds of accidentals, so don't be afraid to mix sharps and flats.

Here, for instance, is your gypsy scale based on C:

And here's your Hungarian scale:

If there is a clear sense of a root - perhaps the first note in your examples - then it might be easier for someone reading your piece if you use the key signature (whether major or minor) of that note and use accidentals for the other sharpened or flattened notes.

But your first example could - assuming the first note to be C - be written with the key signature Ab Db, this order being as in a normal major or minor key signature.

Key signatures containing both sharps and flats may look a bit odd but they also exist.

Your 'Hungarian' scale could thus have the key signature

Eb-Ab-F# or F#-Eb-Ab.

(It wouldn't have Ab-F#-Eb)

By the way, in more complicated modes, for example D, E-quarter-flat, F#, G, A, B-quarter-flat, C#, there is the same problem: to show the quarter-flats in the key signature or just write them as accidentals.

[As a footnote I was going to ask where you got the names 'gypsy' and 'Hungarian' from.]

From a typographer's point of view, I would ask myself what the typical reader expects the most: If it's a book about gypsy music, or a songbook of gypsy songs, or sheets for a gypsy band, I would stick with the non-western scale.

Because here the reader expects to see a gypsy music.

If it's for someone else, maybe for a conventional band that will accompany you, or for a generic book or songbook or stuff, or a single short piece to be published seperately (maybe on the internet even), I would choose the most fitting western scale and use accidentals as needed.

Because here seeing a gypsy key would confuse the reader and (maybe even more importantly

) even make him play the wrong notes .

Note that especially with 2 flats for instance, people could automatically expect them to be Bb and Eb, without even checking the actual location of the flat signs in the staves.

Bottom line: As always in typography, choose one and stick to it; consistency is important, and here maybe even more important than making the right decision.

I would use the key signature corresponding to the root of your scale.

Use the minor key signature if your scale has a primarily minor feel and the major key signature if it has a primarily major feel or is ambiguous about its major/minor tonality.

The reason for this is that clearly indicating the tonal center of your piece will make it much easier for readers to interpret it.

Your piece will have lots of accidentals this way, but those are easier to read than a piece that makes it difficult to discern the function of different notes at a glance.

Would you write key signatures for non-conventional scales?

Yes I would, as it will be easier to me to write and to read it - and probably to others.

But I wouldn't use the Roman numbering

like you did in your question.

For example, the gypsy scale, I-♭II-III-IV-V-♭VI-VII.

e.g. the gypsy scale I would notate as Phrygian with an augmented 7th and with relative names: mifa-sila-tido-rimi

(I think I would even renounce an analyse in RN)

Question: For example, the gypsy scale, I-♭II-III-IV-V-♭VI-VII. Would you write a key signature for a scale like that, that didn't start on B♭ like scales are supposed to? Or would you just add the flat every time you play that note? Or would you choose the closest usable key signature and just add a flat/neutral to each note that was different? What if a scale has both flats and sharps, such as Hungarian I-II-♭III-♯IV-V-♭VI-VII?

Would you write key signatures for non-conventional scales?

Many composers have used non-traditional key signatures that don't follow the standard order of sharps and flats. Use the key signature corresponding to the root of your scale. Use the minor key signature if your scale has a primarily minor feel and the major key signature if it has a primarily major feel or is ambiguous about its major/minor tonality.

Use the minor key signature if the scale sounds more like a minor one. See if you can find the root of the scale in the main signature.

Many composers have used non-traditional key signatures that don't follow the standard order of sharps and flats. Use the minor key signature if your scale has a primarily minor feel or is ambiguous about its major/minor tonality. I would use the key signature corresponding to the root of your scale.


That song - and thousands of others, can and still will be in key C, even though there's an F♯ note in there somewhere.

I suspect it comes just before a G note, and what's happened is that the song's modulated briefly, sort of visiting key G, but not moving permanently into key G. It probably wanders back to all key C notes soon after.

This sort of thing happens a lot, but

just becasuse there's a non-diatonic note in there, doesn't mean a change of key.

That would be deemed so if the piece stayed with that F♯ for many, many bars.

Tink of it this way

- if you changed the key signature to one sharp, soon, you'd have to keep putting natural signs for the remaining F notes, and that wouldn't be right.

Seeing a sharp sign before any F notes, in key C, tells us 'modulation'.

Sure, that's not a problem.

As another example, O Canada , when rendered in C major, would have four F♯s in it.

X:

O CanadaM: CL: 1/8

K: CmajE4G3G|C6D2|E2F2G2A2|D6z2|E4^F3F|G6A2|B2B2A2A2|G6

The examples so far all include a modulation, so that the F# occurs while the chord is G.

But it's very possible to get an F# even when the chord is still C. For example: ‘ Maria ’ from West Side Story .

The second, fifth, and eighth notes in the melody are all F# against a C chord (and several more later on).

(The same three notes recur at the start of ‘Cool’, from the same show.)

As many others have said on this site: there are no hard-and-fast rules in music, only guidelines* — and if non-scale notes seem right to you, by all means use 'em!

(* It's worth understanding the rules/guidelines and the reasons for them before you break them.

But just as the Rule Of Funny (warning: TVTropes) trumps just about everything else when it comes to humour, so the ‘rule of sounding good’ trumps just about everything else in music!)

Depends.

Here are examples from two very well-known pieces (bonus points for identifing them :-)

one of a ♯4 that definitely is just decorative, not a modulation, and one that is a modulation.

Which category does yours fall into?

If in doubt, show us the piece.

Like Tim explains and Lawrence shows ...

your song seems to have a momentary modulation (maybe 1-2 bars) to the dominant G (V = 5th degree).

This is managed by the D7, dominant (V) of G, called secondary dominant.

This chord is built by D,F#,A,C, where F# is the leading tone to G. V7 of V in C : The term secondary dominant refers to a triad or seventh chord built on the dominant, the fifth scale degree, set to resolve to a scale degree other than the tonic, with the dominant of the dominant (written as V/V or V of V)

Wiki

You will find a lot of more information about secondary dominants in this SE-site or here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_chord can I still say the song is in C major?

Or, does it change the key of the whole song?

I don't think the song is changing the key.

Probably not!

It depends of the continuation.

F# can also be a chromatic approach to G or a passing tone to F

e.g. you are writing a Blues!

It's not necessarily (in fact, not likely) what you're seeing in your example, but a piece with a tonal centre of C but frequent occurrences of F♯ could be in a C Lydian Mode.

The Lydian mode is the mode based on

F. So if you played all the white notes on a piano starting on F, you would be playing an F Lydian mode.

More generally, it is equivalent to a major scale with a sharpened 4th.

Maria, from West Side Story , which is mentioned in another answer, has sometimes been analysed as being in Lydian mode.

If you're getting to the F# directly from the C (or playing it over a C bass), then that dissonant interval is called a "tritone" (3 whole notes put together).

It's a very common idiom to use tritones to lead up to the fifth (or sometimes down to the fourth).

As other answers have mentioned, the eponymous melody in "Maria" from West Side Story is one canonical example that people use to hear the interval in their mind's ear.

However, it's possible for an F# to be played in a section of your key-of-C song that's over a G chord, in which case it wouldn't be dissonant (although that still wouldn't change the key of the whole song).

It all depends on how the note is placed in the context of the song.

Question: I've composed a melody in C Major but there's this one note, F#, which comes at two places. So, can I still say the song is in C major? Or, does it change the key of the whole song?

Song in C major has F# note

This chord is built by D,F#,A,C, where F# is the leading tone to G.  V7 of V in C : The term secondary dominant refers to a triad or seventh chord built on the dominant, the fifth scale degree, set to resolve to a scale degree other than the tonic, with the dominant of the dominant (written as V/V or V of V). However, it's possible for an F# to be played in a section of your key-of-C song that's over a G chord, in which case it wouldn't be dissonant (although that still wouldn't change the key of the whole song).

This chord is built by D,F#,A,C, where F# is the leading tone to G. It's possible for an F# to be played in a section of your key-of-C song that's over a G chord. It all depends on how the note is placed in the context of the song.


I think that it doesn't speak for itself.

However obvious it might be to some performers that the left hand has the tune, that is only their guess, without the authority from you, the composer.

So you need some notation.

To me, a louder dynamic (for example " ff ") just means louder generally, and doesn't imply any particular any particular articulations.

Accents imply a forceful articulation.

But then, accents on every note mean that the whole line is just louder.

In your examples, you have staccato chords in the RH, so you can't get your first example's ff loudness by using the sustain pedal, so you must get it by hitting the keys harder, which produces the effect that the accents indicate.

So in this particular case, it might not make a lot of difference.

(Do accents imply non legato?)

But I'd prefer ff because your second example makes me check every LH chord to see if it has an accent.

To some extent you don't need to add dynamics to accentuate the melody.

If the melodic line is clear and obvious, the perform should bring it out in some way.

But to be sure there isn't any confusion add the specific dynamics.

I think this... https://music.stackexchange.com/a/45138/23919 ...covers the basic idea.

Put two different dynamic markings on the two separate staves.

Regarding accents:

Marking everything accented makes all the notes the same and defeats the purpose of accents.

Accents are normally used like this (Prokofiev's Toccata)... ...

I think especially important in the usage is marking accents that aren't implied by the meter.

But, Prokofiev does use accenting on nearly every note in some places... ...but that is understood to be a barrage of strongly played notes then the music goes back to dynamics.

The two examples aren't going to be played the same anyway.

In the top one, there is a tune played by l.h., but that same tune is much more emphasised in the bottom one.

Marcato or agogic accents would align the two bass clef parts better.

It's funny that we never mark that the r.h. has to be played louder than the l.h.

(in most pieces), which I suppose is where the question came from.

For simplicity's sake - which is really what writing out music should be about - the top version is clear, although with the appropriate markings, anyone should be able to translate something like the bottom one.

To an experienced musician you do not need to bring attention to the melody as an experienced musician will see this in the sheet music and they can hear the melodic line as well.

For a less experienced musician, noting where the melody travels would be helpful and can be done with a ff notation as you did in your first example.

The use of accents also works, but will sound slightly different due to the technique used to play an accent vs playing ff throughout measures.

All in all, I would leave it alone, the melodic line is clear in this example.

Hope that helps!

The second example is poor, because you can't "play an accent on every note".

The only way to hear something is an accent is to compare it with something that is not an accent.

Any performer with the smallest amount of musical intelligence should realize that "the left hand is playing the tune" here, so you don't really need any markings at all, but dynamics marks written below the bottom staff or above the top staff only apply to that single staff, not to both.

I never played piano, but as a lifetime choral singer and a one-time trumpet player, I've seen plenty of music in which the melody (both for the choristers and the instruments) was marked a dynamic louder than the harmony.

(Including when the melody was given to the sopranos as usual.

As far as, "the melody is supposed to be louder" goes, not a whole dynamic louder.)

As well, my interpretation of an accent on every note would be a bit of a sforzando piano, hitting the note hard and pulling back before the next accent.

I could see pianist releasing the keys a tiny bit early, allowing the piano to quiet for a fraction of the note to achieve a similar effect.

So I would recommend A as the likely standard, especially if you want a legato fortissimo.

Any competent musician will know the melody is in the left hand part.

There's no need to tell them by adding accents or a fortissimo.

I have recently started writing melodically under the left-hand part in experimental contexts where the melody might not obviously look like a melody.

Generally speaking though, including in your case, you should trust the performer to see a melody where there is one; and when there is cause to suspect they might not see the melody, you should seriously consider rewriting it.

Question: Sorry if this is a stupid question. In this passage I'm notating, the right hand has accentuating chords and the left hand carries the melody. I wonder whether I need to denote that (and if so, whether method A or B is more proper - I have seen both used); or if it speaks for itself that the left hand has the melody and should be played clearly. It goes on for about twenty bars before both hands should be at the same volume again.

What is more proper notation in piano sheet music to denote that the left hand should be louder?

To an experienced musician you do not need to bring attention to the melody as an experienced musician will see this in the sheet music and they can hear the melodic line as well.  For a less experienced musician, noting where the melody travels would be helpful and can be done with a ff notation. Any performer with the smallest amount of musical intelligence should realize that "the left hand is playing the tune" here, so you don't really need any markings at all, but dynamics marks written below the bottom staff or above the top staff only apply to that single staff, not to both. There's no need to tell them by adding accents or a fortissimo.

To some extent you don't need to add dynamics to accentuate the melody. If the melodic line is clear and obvious, the perform should bring it out in some way. Any competent musician will know the melody is in the left hand part. Any performer with the smallest amount of musical intelligence should realize that "the left hand is playing the tune" here.


I'd like to add to some of the good answers here, this reddit one sums it up well for me

Pitch is the human perception of frequency.

Key is the familiar system of scales and chords with a tonic. reference

A piece or excerpt can be atonal--i.e.

it can be in no key whatsoever--and still have its pitch changed.

I can change the pitch of a 12-tone serialist piece up 3 semitones and its pitch will differ, but it still won't be in any key.

The key of a piece encompasses what its tonic is and whether it favours the flattened or natural/sharpened third, among other things.

Changing the pitch of all of a piece's notes by the same number of semitones will change its key...

if it has any.

Pitch and key are similar in the sense that changing the key of a piece means changing the pitch by multiples of a semitone.

Of course it's possible to change the pitch by any amount, not necessarily multiples of a semitone.

Pitch is simply a measurement of frequency, it's a quantification of sound.

Key is a musical concept describing the collection of pitches that form a framework for melody and harmony and tension/resolution, which may be based around any root pitch.

When referring to single musical notes, the pitch may be a pure waveform of that frequency if it's coming from a synth, or if it's an analog instrument

it's the single most dominant frequency from the sound (ignoring the other harmonics and overtones from the timbre of the instrument).

But when you're editing an audio clip and "pitching up" or "pitching down," you are modulating or transposing the key of the song by changing the pitch of every note by the same value.

Changing the pitch in audacity will probably mean to transform (transpose) a wave-file by "adding" + or - the pitch values up(+) or down(-).

When changing the key in a notation program you have 2 options, you may transpose the notes up or down like the movable do: The tune will be unchanged, but the pitch will be changed.

When changing the signature you may have the option: a) to keep the notes where they are: the result will be a different mode:

e.g. C -> the notes keep the original position, but

E => Eb and B =

Bb, and the song will be in Bb-Dorian.

The pitch of the tune will be unchanged, only the altered tones referring to the new key signature will be changed, and this means: The tune will be changed! b) to transpose the notes up or down with the key signature, (then you still have the option of diatonic or harmonic transposition like playing the same printed notes with a transposing instrument).

This latter case 3b):

harmonic transposition by changing the signature is identical with changing the key, that means to change the key with transposing the notes is a short cut).

So it looks like pitch change and key change are the same.

In any case you have to decide the direction (up or down) of the changed result.

Question: Say I have a song that I recorded in C major to a wav file. And then I open that file with Audacity (or some other audio program) and I increase the pitch. And as a result now the song is in E major. Then aren't pitch and key similar?

Difference between pitch and key?

Pitch and key are similar in the sense that changing the key of a piece means changing the pitch by multiples of a semitone. Key is a musical concept describing the collection of pitches that form a framework for melody and harmony and tension/resolution, which may be based around any root pitch. The key of a piece encompasses what its tonic is and whether it favours the flattened or natural/sharpened third, among other things.

Pitch and key are similar in the sense that changing the key of a piece means changing the pitch by multiples of a semitone. Key is a musical concept describing the collection of pitches that form a framework for melody and harmony.


Polyrhythm.

It's good thing to learn to do.

4 against 3 is nice, before that you should normally try 3 against 2.

Normally it's hard to do at the start.

I had to break it down, splitting the beats.

For 3 against 2 you need to split the pattern into 6, for 4 against 3 into 12.

I made two grids to show how: It takes a bit of practice but it is very good for your time feel as a musician to learn to tap these.

Normally you use two hands, one doing each line, or a hand and a foot.

It helps if you use two "instruments" (whatever comes to hand) that have quite different tones.

(And soon you'll have people around you saying "will you stop that tapping" ...)

There is a common mnemonic for learning the 3:4 poly-rhythm.

Apologies for the minor profanity, but it goes like so: Get two people, call them "3" and "4" and give them the following instructions: 3

: You're watching a baseball game and your team is in the field, and you're hoping the outfielder can throw the ball to the first-baseman, so you repeat the following phrase over and over: "Pass! God!

Catch!"

4: Someone has offered to sell you the Hoover Dam, but you think he's probably a scam artist, so what do you do?

"Pass the dam up" - repeat this phrase over and over again, try to take the same amount of time as the other person.

Both phrases include the word "Pass", so they should say that at the same time.

If you get the timing right, you'll get the following somewhat impolite request at the dinner table:

"Pass the goddamn ketchup".

The natural way of saying of that phrase is basically a perfect 3:4 poly-rhythm.

Overlaying two different evenly-spaced subdivisions with no immediate common factor, is called polyrhythm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyrhythm Polyrhythm is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter.

When starting out for the most common polyrhythms involving 2/3/4, if you subdivide down to eighth notes or triplet eighths as the common factor you can find where each larger beat will land.

You can conceptualize 3-over-4 as a case of 3-over-2 with the 2's subdivided once more (which only requires a divisor of 6-per-bar to map them together), and this older question addresses the 3-over-4 case specifically with notation: How to count polyrhythm 3 against 4 in common time?

(When you get into wackier polyrhythms involving 5s and 7s over base-2's, this mathematical fractions method becomes useless and you start going by feel and true limb independence.

But that takes a while of practice internalizing how the basic 3-vs-2 polyrhythms feel, and playing stuff in odd meters with 5's or 7's instead of just 3/4 and 4/4)

The late drum teacher Charles Dowd called this the Rhythm of Life .

[I assumed this was in reference to a song utilizing this rhythm.]

He taught it in the context of an Afro-Cuban-style pattern on drum set: The two top-line patterns are equivalent, but it is the bass drum (lower line) that names the underlying pulse.

If one instead plays the 2nd pattern with dotted eighth notes on the bass drum, it becomes the 1st pattern, but now thought of in 3/4 time.

The perceived change between time signatures comes from changing from 3 to 4 on the bass drum.

Eventually, this is most rewarding when one plays, say, the 2nd pattern with hi-hat on quarters and changes bass drum to dotted eighths.

[This makes the 4 over 3 happen between both feet.]

Then continue to play the top-line pattern on bell of cymbal and finally include a clave-style rhythm with left hand.

Splitting up a 4 against 3 pattern into 12 equal parts doesn't really work except at a very slow tempo.

You just need to get train your brain (and hands) to do different things at the same time.

A good way to learn to do this is set a metronome to a slow tempo corresponding to one "beat" per bar.

Start by tapping with each hand separately for several bars.

Then alternate one bar with each hand, and finally put both hands together.

Three against two or three against four is fairly simple.

Here's a snippet of organ music where you have 3 against 2 both with your left hand, simultaneously with 5 in your right hand, and 4, 6, 5 and 7 with your feet, on successive beats.

Trying to count out "7 against 5 against 3" by splitting up to beat into 105 tiny parts isn't a practical idea!

Drummers ought to be able to keep four different rhythms going at the same time - one with each hand and one with each foot.

A small contribution to your "What is it called?

" question:

I have heard this type of rhythm described as the "dog-gone" rhythm in a lesson from Bob Brozman, the guitar player, here: http://www.bobbrozman.com/tip_rhythm.html

Question: I'm new to the "music scene". Well, at least the more technical parts of it.  In ninth grade, our music teacher taught us how to do a tapping/drumming thing where we tap 3 times on one leg and 4 times on the other in 4 beats.  What is this called? How to do it?

Tapping 3 times on one leg and 4 times on another leg in 4 beats. What is it called and how to do it?

Overlaying two different evenly-spaced subdivisions with no immediate common factor, is called polyrhythm:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyrhythm   Polyrhythm is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. When starting out for the most common polyrhythms involving 2/3/4, if you subdivide down to eighth notes or triplet eighths as the common factor you can find where each larger beat will land.


The 'add' modifier is used if a note above the 7th is added to a triad, and if the lower tensions are not part of the chord.

That's why there's a difference between a C9 and a C(add9) chord.

The first has a (flat) 7th, the other one doesn't: C9 =

C E G

Bb D C(add9) =

C E G

D

Another usage is to add notes that would otherwise replace another note, as is the case with an added 4th.

In a sus4 chord, the 4 replaces the third, but in an add4 chord both the third and the fourth are present.

Note that when higher tensions are added on top of the 7th, then "add" is not used, even if some of the lower tensions are not present.

E.g., a C13 chord must have a b7 and a 13, but it could be played without the 9, and it would still be perceived as (and called) a C13, and definitely not C(add 13).

The difference between C9 and C add9 is that the latter chord doesn't contain the 7th.

True, most chords are clear in their make-up from the name.

However, sometimes, there needs to be an extra note added and it's more clear to write that at the end of a chord's name.

Csus2, for example, needs C D G, as the sus knocks out the 3rd of the chord, E.

But what about if we wanted to have a D note as well?

C E G and D.

That's where the ' add' part comes in handy.

We can either call it Cadd2, or more commonly, Cadd9.

Cadd9 sounds better as the D is not played next to the C and E anyway.

I suppose C6 could be called Cadd6, except generally speaking, any add notes are above the octave, so there's no need.

Any chord that contains a number higher than 7 will need that 7 in it anyway, so Cmaj9 will be C E G B D.

The only way to name that chord, but not have the 7th (B) played, would be to call it Cadd9.

“Add” is used in chord symbols in certain cases where the usual assumptions don’t apply.

Strictly speaking, a chord with an extension (9, 11, or 13) contains the triad indicated by the note letter (root, third, and fifth), the seventh, the interval of the extension, and all lower extensions .

(See here for the complete picture.)

A ninth chord has no lower extensions, so a Cm9 is C E♭ G B♭ D .

The seventh (B♭) and the ninth (D) are both important to the quality of this chord.

But a composer might not want the B♭ to be played.

How is this solved?

The symbol becomes Cm(add9).

The same applies to higher extensions.

Strictly speaking, a Cm13 chord is C E♭ G B♭ D F A , though it’s rarely played that way in practice.

Musicians may choose to eliminate the fifth (G), the ninth (D), and/or the eleventh (F).

That leaves the most important qualities of the chord in place; the root, the minor third, the seventh, and the thirteenth.

Again, if a composer wanted an A in the chord without a B♭, the chord could be written as C6 or C(add13).

By convention, a six chord is a triad plus a major sixth interval, so “add” would be redundant, but “add” is necessary in C(add13) to indicate that no B♭ is played.

(The “add13” suggests a voicing where the A is an octave higher than 6, thus C6 is a far more common chord symbol.)

“Add” is also used for minor and major seconds, and perfect and augmented fourths when these aren’t meant to be suspensions.

For example, Cadd4 is C E F G

whereas C F G is Csus4.

Confusingly, some publishers and composers use C4 to mean Cadd4 while other use it for Csus4.

Obviously, it’s better to be explicit when you can.

When chord symbols get too complicated, they lose their utility.

They’re meant to make things easier, not more complicated.

In cases where specific voicings are desired, it’s better to write in standard notation.

First, C9 denotes traditionally a dominant chord: that's C7 with the major 9th.

This must resolve somewhere (most standardly to F).

Now Cadd9 is a C major triad with the major 9th.

This is a major chord which functions as a tonic .

You can pretty much always substitute Cadd9 for CMaj9, which is CMaj7 with the major 9th.

The former is more "pop", the latter more "jazz".

Likewise, Cm9 is Cm7 with the major 9th, and those two chords are roughly interchangeable (and also with Cm11 in a jazz context) and function as II chords in a II/V movement (Cm7/F7).

Question: The name implies that you are adding a note, but we already notate that explicitly in the chord name and quality.   We say Cm7, not Cm add 7. If we want a 9th, we can go Cm9, but is Cm add 9 correct too? Is there a difference?  So, what exactly is an add chord? When is the notation used?

What's an "add" chord?

e 'add' modifier is used if a note above the 7th is added to a triad, and if the lower tensions are not part of the chord. That's why there's a difference between a C9 and a C(add9) chord.  Strictly speaking, a chord with an extension (9, 11, or 13) contains the triad indicated by the note letter (root, third, and fifth), the seventh, the interval of the extension, and  all lower extensions .

A chord with an extension includes the triad indicated by the note letter, the seventh, the interval of the extension, and  all lower extensions .

A chord with an extension (9, 11, or 13) contains the triad indicated by the note letter (root, third, and fifth), the seventh, the interval of the extension, and  all lower extensions .


Can the bass clef be transformed to the treble clef in piano music?

Yes

but please don't.

It seems like it would be much easier to read.

No.

You will be making Middle C be a line in one staff and a space in the other.

Bass cleff continues directly from treble with middle C being the one ledger line between them.

Is there a compelling reason not to do this?

Pretty much all piano music uses bass cleff.

Intentionally ensuring that you can't actually read any music from the instrument you are trying to learn seems like a bad idea.

It is common for piano staff to change clefs.

There can be passages with both hands playing G clef or passages with both hands playing F clef.

You really need to read both clefs, and getting familiar with C clef is a good idea too.

Can the bass clef be transformed to the treble clef in piano music?

How can you do this with printed music without re-writing it?

But it makes no sense to put the effort into doing that instead of learning the different clefs.

Is there a compelling reason not to do this?

Yes, readability.

The reason different clefs exist is so notes can fit conveniently onto a 5 line staff.

Below shows what happens if you take notes that fit F clef and then put on a G clef... ...

you get a nightmare of ledger lines.

Or, if you transpose up two octaves to get the notes reasonably well centered on G clef and then put an octave line under it, you get something that is kind of misleading appearing to be a scale starting on A4 rather than A2 .

Try to read the interval changes rather than line and space letters.

So this... ...should be read like

"ascend two thirds, no accidentals" rather than "F A C."

Of course you must be aware of the letters, but it's more like the clef gives you an orientation (the center of the G clef

tells you where G4 is then you know the space below it is an F .

From that orientation you then read relative changes.

Since generally speaking the bass clef is played with l.h. and treble with r.h., and the hands are different, it makes sense that music for piano is written using both clefs.

I imagine nearly all piano players would understand and appreciate that.

However, if you wanted to transcribe the bass clef notes so they sat in a treble clef

, you could do that.

A lot of work, and they'd have to be played at least an octave lower than written - no big deal there - and in the long run, more work than learning the notes in that pesky bass clef.

But you're probably only cofused with note names.

Actually, they're just two out from those in the treble clef:

the B that's on the middle line, treble, moves to the line below on bass, and retains its name.

Not the same B, obviously!

But B nevertheless.

Another way to look at it is that the bass clef continues down from where the treble leaves off - leaving a big space for middle C (on its own leger line), whether middle cC is part of the treble or bass clef.

So, yes, it's quite possible, but you'd be doing it for every piece for the rest of your life.

Is that really worth it?

If you really want to learn to read bass clef, do the opposite of what you are suggesting.

Rewrite the treble clef parts in the bass clef, and learn by total immersion.

Any music notation software can do this easily.

But spending time playing only the left hand parts of pieces will probably work just as well.

Choose pieces where the left hand has plenty of notes to read, not just a few simple chords - for example

Bach's two-part inventions.

Actually the bass clef seamlessly fits below the violin clef, which means, you will recognize a cross-system scale easily.

If you are prepared to write all your scores yourself, this may be an option, but fairly few will be able to play from that.

The bass clef is not that difficult, and it is worth the effort to learn it.

If you had to, you could use an octave or double octave clef, like

the second one displayed here: The '15' indicates that symbol is to be read as 2 octaves away (a single octave is represented by an '8'); the direction of which is identified by the position of the number.

The second symbol here with the 15 below the treble clef would be analogous to a bass clef with the notes 2 positions higher.

a 'Middle C' on this clef would play as C2, or the C two ledger-lines below the bass stave.

Question: I have been learning the piano for a few months now and I am having trouble learning the bass clef. I have played other instruments that use the treble clef so I know it well. Can the bass clef be transformed to the treble clef in piano music? It seems like it would be much easier to read. Is there a compelling reason not to do this? Thanks.

Can the treble clef be used instead of the bass clef in piano music?

The bass clef is not  that  difficult, and it is worth the effort to learn it. You really need to read both clefs, and getting familiar with C clef is a good idea too.  Actually the bass clef seamlessly fits below the violin clef, which means, you will recognize a cross-system scale easily.  Moreover, it is common for piano staff to change clefs. There can be passages with both hands playing G clef or passages with both hands playing F clef.

It is usual for piano staff to change clefs.

It is common for piano staff to change clefs. The bass clef seamlessly fits below the violin clef, which means, you will recognize a cross-system scale easily. You really need to read both clefs, and getting familiar with C clef is a good idea too. If you are prepared to write all your scores yourself, this may be an option, but fairly few will be able to play from that.


I don't know the precise physics of this, but it's an expected phenomenon, especially on heavier strings.

When you first strike the string hard, the amount of displacement in the vibration from 'perfectly straight' stretches the string, so in effect raises its tension & therefore pitch.

As it gets quieter, that displacement becomes less, so the pitch drops slightly, back to 'nominal'.

If you strike the string more softly, or further back towards the bridge, this will happen less.

This is aside from anything you may accidentally be doing to the guitar as this happens, perhaps resting on the rear of the body whilst holding the neck, etc.

or that as you progress through the strings, if all needed to be raised in pitch, by the time you get to the last string the neck will have pulled forwards slightly, making the earlier ones flat.

Yes, this is expected, for the reason Tetsujin states -- that a string vibrating at a higher amplitude is under higher tension.

Of course this raises the question - do you tune the guitar so that the attack is in tune with the other instruments, or the decay?

The answer may depend on what kind of part the guitar is playing, and the mix of the track.

In many cases it will be too small a factor to matter much, but occasionally being mindful of the pitch envelope of the decaying string will help you improve your final recording a little.

It's always going to be the case, when you play the string too hard.

Think about it - the string is stretched slightly as you pluck it (more when you pluck harder), so the shown pitch is going to be higher.

Once it settles down and is sounding normally, it's fine.

Way round is to not pluck too hard - the device should still 'hear' it, but in any case, wait a second to establish what the tuner has decided the note is.

Then tune accordingly.

On a personal note, I'm increasingly dismayed that so many players rely so heavily on tuners that soon they may have lost any other means of tuning!!

Wait till the battery goes flat!

I was taught to tune from a higher frequency down to the correct value, instead of up from a low value.

There will likely be some difference in tension in the string, somewhere between the tuning mechanism to the nut after you stop turning the tuning peg.

I assume the friction of the strings on the nut causes this.

It might not reveal itself directly, but when the tension evens itself out over the entire string later, the sounding part of the string can go slightly out of tune.

Most people find it easier to identify "in tune" when coming up from below.

I dunno why; one of those neuroacoustic things.

There's the added advantage that you reduce the risk of snapping a string from overtensioning.

And equally important: tuning from below means there's no backlash or relaxation effects.

If you tune from above, you are releasing tension but the string may well take a little time to fully release - hence drifting out of tune.

And when tuning from below, the machine head (gears in the tuning mech) is always fully "non-backlashed" as well.

What I usually do: When I tune a guitar I pull on the string to stretch it or to control that it is correct fixed.

Yes, and as I mentioned in my comment: Maybe by tuning another string the neck gets slightly bowed and the string tension weakened.

Question: If I tune a guitar typically I see that I strike the string and the tuner records a certain value, e.g. dead on E.  However often (maybe not always - but I can't say for sure) a few moments later the tuner shows that the string is tuned slightly below E.  What causes this?  Surely as a string loses energy it doesn't drop in pitch?

guitar tuning - note shifts after striking it

When tuning a guitar when you first strike the string hard, the amount of displacement in the vibration from 'perfectly straight' stretches the string, so in effect raises its tension & therefore pitch. As it gets quieter, that displacement becomes less, so the pitch drops slightly, back to 'nominal'.   If you strike the string more softly, or further back towards the bridge, this will happen less. This is aside from anything you may accidentally be doing to the guitar as this happens, perhaps resting on the rear of the body whilst holding the neck, etc.

When you first strike the string hard, the amount of displacement in the vibration from 'perfectly straight' stretches the string, so in effect raises its tension. As it gets quieter, that displacement becomes less, so the pitch drops slightly, back to 'nominal' This is aside from anything you may accidentally be doing to the guitar as this happens, perhaps resting on the rear of the body whilst holding the neck.


It has to be this.

An 8th tied to a half.

Or, possibly, if the grouping is 2+3, split the dotted quarter into a tied quarter and 8th.

I know you asked for NOT a tie.

But that isn't how rhythmic notation works.

And inventing a personal system for something as simple as this isn't sensible.

Sorry!

Well, I suppose this might be theoretically possible with some sort of combination of nested tuplet brackets, but then you'd just create a bar that would be incomprehensible to normal musicians.

Keep in mind that where you put ties is not arbitrary: ties are frequently used to represent the beat structure, even when it is possible to write a single note value rather than two tied notes.

Here, since it isn't possible to write a single note of five eighth-note duration using standard note values, it's all the more important to use the tie to indicate the beat structure.

That is, if you're in 5/4, the use of that time signature generally indicates 5 quarter note "beats" per bar.

For example, say you were writing a bar of 4/4 time with two notes that are 1.5 beats long and a final quarter note.

While you could write it as dotted quarter-dotted quarter-quarter, many composers might write it out as dotted quarter followed by eighth tied to a quarter, then a final quarter.

The reason is that showing the third (strong) beat in a 4/4 bar improves legibility.

That rhythm isn't perhaps complicated enough to require such a tied note, but more complex rhythms might make it very helpful.

For your rhythm, with four 16ths on the first beat, and a dotted quarter on beat 2, it's actually helpful to show an eighth note on the upbeat of 3 tied to a half note on beat 4.

The only time you'd want to show a long duration note occurring on an off-beat in a complex metric situation like this is if it's a regularly occurring pattern.

(And if you are commonly having long-duration notes fall on the "and of 3" in a 5/4 bar, maybe you don't actually have a 5/4 meter, but instead a 10/8 meter that is segmented (5+5)/8 and it would be better to notate it that way.)

As it turns out, you just plain can't do this with only one note value.

In fact, in Are ties necessary? , the questioner cites this exact problem of five eighth notes as one possible reason why ties must be used in our notational system.

Which leads to the next obvious question: why are you seeking a solution that uses only one a single note?

In all meters, you want to show the organization of the beats within the measure.

As such, for the sake of notational clarity, you would likely want to show this rhythm as an eighth note tied into a half.

An eighth-note tied to a half-note (or some other such tied combination) is the standard way to notate a single note with a duration of five eighth-notes.

When you say you want “one note, not […] tied variations”, are you perhaps confusing ties with slurs?

They’re visually similar, but conceptually distinct: when a slur/tie connects noteheads of different pitches, then it’s a slur and just means they should be articulated legato, but when it connects two noteheads of the same pitch, it’s a tie, and really does mean they represent a single note of the combined total duration (unless it’s combined with certain other articulation markings, e.g. staccato dots).

As Richard’s answer says, the choice between using a half note tied to an eighth, or an eighth tied to a half, or other possible combinations, should be determined by how they fit into the meter of the whole bar: the break between the two notes in the combination should line up with as high-level as possible a division of the meter.

I agree with the other answers that a tie is probably the best choice, since the musician is probably counting in 5/4, so they should be able to see the beat.

It only requires one tie.

But if you want to emphasize the fact that the measure is being split exactly in half, you could make a 2-note half-note duplet of the 5/4 measure, though as said before, this is already notatable with ties, and I think it's less convenient to read or to comprehend.

I propose you indicate as instruction to the piece: a whole note=5/8 everything will be clear and you can forget all the rest, as it is your advice about the interpretation of your notation:

Question: In a bar of 5/4 there are: 4 sixteenth notes (1 beat), a dotted quarter note (1.5 beats) which leaves me with representing  2.5 beats as one note (not a half note tied to an eighth note or other tied variations). So what single note should I write to represent 2.5 beats?

How to I represent 5 eighth-notes as one note?

An eighth-note tied to a half-note (or some other such tied combination)  is  the standard way to notate a single note with a duration of five eighth-notes. They’re visually similar, but conceptually distinct: when a slur/tie connects noteheads of different pitches, then it’s a slur and just means they should be articulated legato, but when it connects two noteheads of the same pitch, it’s a tie, and really does mean they represent a single note of the combined total duration (unless it’s combined with certain other articulation markings, e.g. staccato dots).  However, if you want to emphasize the fact that the measure is being split exactly in half, you could make a 2-note half-note duplet of the 5/4 measure, though as said before, this is already notatable with ties, and I think it's less convenient to read or to comprehend.

An eighth-note tied to a half-note (or some other such tied combination)  is  the standard way to notate a single note with a duration of five eighth-notes.  They’re visually similar to slurs.


Let's see: Doesn't look fake to me.

But sort of cumbersome to read.

E major has 4 sharps, so it's not surprising

E sharp major has 4 double sharps and the other notes sharped.

In general, going to the enharmonically equivalent key implies a jump by net 12 sharps/flats (2 for each whole step in the scale, 1 for each half step).

F major has -1 sharps (well, 1 flat), so E sharp major has a net of 11, namely 3 single and 4 double ones.

It's not fake , it's theoretical .

There is a theoretical difference between E sharp major and F major because they are spelled differently and reside in different places on the circle (spiral?) of fifths.

In practical terms, they are identical because they are enharmonically equivalent, thanks to equal temperament.

It exists but probably isn't included as an article because, whereas a scale like Db minor is a flat note with no "simpler" spelling*, E# is enharmonic to F which is a white key and arguably simpler / more common to read.

Db minor also has double accidentals.

Basically, E# refers to the same pitch as F, and there's not much reason to use E# as the root of your scale in the first place, so there's no article for E# minor.

As a sidenote, E# and F don't necessarily refer to the same pitch.

For example, in the tuning system 19TET , E# is enharmonic to Fb instead, which then lies halfway between E and F. *typically Db minor is replaced with C# minor because C# minor, being the relative minor of E major, has a much simpler key signature without any double accidentals.

But if a piece is in Db major and borrows chords / notes from the parallel minor, then Db minor would theoretically be used.

As other answers point out, E# minor exists in theory, but is in used vanishingly rarely (if ever) in practice.

But this provokes the followup question: if E# minor so rare as to be “purely theoretical”,

why is G# major (with the same key signature) less rare in practice?

In isolation, G# major is just as impractical: for the primary key of a work, one would almost always write it as Ab major instead.

But G# major is closely related to several minor keys which have fewer sharps in their key signature — most closely, C# minor and G# minor.

These keys do appear often in practice (since their enharmonic equivalents, Db minor and Ab minor, have more flats than these have sharps).

So if a piece is primarily in C# minor and modulates to its dominant major, it’s often more readable to write the section in G# major than to switch between sharp spellings and flat spellings within the piece.

Generally, major keys have closely related minor keys with more flats/fewer sharps, while minor keys have closely related major keys with more sharps/fewer flats, so extremely sharp key spellings occur more often as major keys, while extremely flat key spellings occur more often as minor keys .

On the sharp end, E# minor and A# minor are rarer than G# major and C# major respectively, as mentioned in the question.

On the flat end, Fb major and Cb major are rarer than Db minor and Ab minor, because (for instance) these minors can appear secondarily in a piece with primary key Ab major.

Yes, an e-sharp minor scale exists, but you’re not gonna find many examples of one in music.

If you do, we can go yell at the editor.

Question: WikiPedia has  an article about E-sharp  minor  scale  (that is a scale relative to G-sharp major) there is no article of E-sharp  major , instead it redirects to F major that is a scale using flats instead of sharps. I want to know if the E-sharp major scale is fake? PS. I am asking specifficaly this scale.

The musical scale E-sharp major is fake?

The E sharp major key is not fake it is theoratical. There is a theoretical difference between E sharp major and F major because they are spelled differently and reside in different places on the circle of fifths.  In practical terms, they are identical because they are enharmonically equivalent, thanks to equal temperament. It exists but probably isn't included as an article because, whereas a scale like  Db minor  is a flat note with no "simpler" spelling*, E# is enharmonic to F which is a white key and arguably simpler / more common to read. S7: Generally, major keys have closely related minor keys with more flats/fewer sharps, while minor keys have closely related major keys with more sharps/fewer flats, so  extremely sharp key spellings occur more often as major keys, while extremely flat key spellings occur more often as minor keys .

It's not  fake , it's  theoretical . There exists a theoretical difference between E sharp major and F major because they are spelled differently and reside in different places on the circle of fifths.In practical terms, they are identical because they are enharmonically equivalent, thanks to equal temperament.