Dive into the fascinating world of music theory, where naming notes becomes a puzzle! Using Stevie Wonder’s classic, the discussion reveals the unexpected quirks of E-flat minor and the complexities of musical keys. Unravel the historical context behind today's note naming and discover why C-flat raises eyebrows. Prepare for an entertaining critique of the circle of fifths and how it connects to ancient tuning systems. It's a blend of history, logic, and creativity that challenges conventional musical wisdom!
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question_answer ANECDOTE
Ethan's Key Confusion Anecdote
Ethan Hein struggled with the confusing key of E flat minor in Stevie Wonder's song.
He found it easier to play the song transposed to E minor, a friendlier key.
insights INSIGHT
Circle of Fifths Is A Spiral
The circle of fifths is actually a spiral due to tuning discrepancies.
Historically, notes like D sharp and E flat were distinct, not the same pitch.
insights INSIGHT
Historical Note Naming Confusion
E flat and D sharp were historically different notes with distinct pitches.
Modern 12-tone equal temperament merges them for practical instrument building.
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In this episode, I use “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” by Stevie Wonder (1973) as a jumping off point to contemplate the headache of naming notes and chords in keys with a lot of flats and sharps in them. The confusion stems from the fact that Western European note naming conventions got established in a time before twelve-tone equal temperament, when E-flat and D-sharp were two very different notes. We pretend that they are the same for practical reasons, but that comes at the expense of a naming system that no longer makes sense.
Something that I forgot to mention is that in Western European convention, the rule is that you only use each letter name once per major or minor key. So we spell the notes in E-flat minor like so: E-flat, F, G-flat, A-flat, B-flat, C-flat, D-flat. That C-flat might offend your intuition. Wouldn’t it be simpler to just call it B? Yes, it would, and people often incorrectly do, but it’s not what you’re supposed to do. I always thought this rule was arcane and arbitrary until I found it out that when it was established, B and C-flat sounded different from each other, and B would have sounded horrendous in E-flat minor. I know all this tuning business seems remote from practicality, but for myself at least, understanding the history of tuning is simpler than taking the illogic of twelve-tone equal temperament at face value.
The other thing I neglected to mention is that I was able to do all that Pythagorean tuning using a plugin called MTS-ESP by Oddsound. Ableton Live has some cool tuning features built in as of version 12, but if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of tuning systems, you need something more robust. MTS-ESP has a learning curve to it, but once I got the hang of it, I was able to fill some big holes in my understanding, both intellectually and intuitively. You will be hearing more about tuning in future episodes.
Ethan Teaches You Music Podcast