Musical keys that contain double sharp notes
Hi Visitor
Why are keys in music so completely confusing?
What is the point of having both sharps and flats when they can both be used to refer to the same thing?
When should you use sharps and when should you use flats?
And what about double sharps and double flats?
All great questions. And they have been plaguing the minds of musicians for hundreds, if not billions of years.
(Ok, that's not true. After all we invented the sharp/flat system just a few hundred years ago. But I've been asked these questions so many times that to me it feels like a billion of year or two...)
But truthfully, the answers are actually simpler than you might think.
Let’s start with the key of C major. The notes are C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Hopefully, we’re able to figure out, or perhaps you even already know, the distances between these notes in terms of whole steps and half steps.
They are, in case you ‘forgot’: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half.
So, to spell any other key, we simply take our starting place (let’s use D for example), and count up from there using those distances.
So for the key of D, we get: D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#. Simple, right?
This concept can be used to find the notes in any key you can think of; however - and I think you will agree with me on this, Visitor - this doesn’t quite answer the question of why we might choose to use sharps or flats, at least in certain situations.
For instance:
Why in a given key we use just sharps or just flats? (There is a very specific practical reason for that)
And there are also certain keys where even this simple concept can start to feel like it’s falling apart.
And what about double sharps or flats?
In the video below, I’ll go over the other simple things you’ll need to keep in mind to solve these issues - once you have watched it, the whole sharp/flat system will make much more sense to you:
Watch the video here: https://musictheoryforguitar.com/g-sharp-major-spelling.html
Enjoy!
Tommaso Zillio
Music Theory Education Expert
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