Monday, August 5, 2013

Dictionary: 35 Note Names


Seven double-flats, seven flats, seven naturals, seven sharps, and seven double-sharps add up to 35 note names.  (Triple-flats and triple-sharps are also sometimes in use, but let's be reasonable here!)  Three note names share the same pitch (e.g., B#, C, and Dbb are enharmonic) for 11 out of 12 pitches.  G-sharp and A-flat do not form a trio with another enharmonic note.  In the chart above (and below), the familiar pattern of C D EF G A BC, where EF and BC have no spacing, repeats horizontally and vertically.  Various perfect pitch programs profess that pairing pitches with colors is part of the process for progress, but we primarily picked the pigments to produce prettier pictures (e.g., all C diagrams are red, Gs are blue, etc.).  (Please forgive the previous plosive-happy alliterative sentence.)  The chart below contains an entire octave, from C to C (or B# to B#, or Dbb to Dbb, if you're complicated):


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