As you may know, I played keyboard in my early teens. I always hated the the term "octave" and the names of the notes, as well as the black keys. To my opinion we should have a "dodectave", so no sharp or flat, no black keys.Cool video. I love the Ted talks. I watch a lot of them on YouTube.
One thing he asserts is that there are no such notes as B#, Cb, E#, or Fb. There are, however, times when these names are the most appropriate names for such notes. He mentions Irving Berlin only playing in F# (I was not aware of this, by the way). F# is an interesting key in the context of this talk, because if you spell it out, it goes:
F#, G#, A#, B, C#, D#, E#, F#. You'll notice that it contains an E#, a note that allegedly does not exist. Yes, it's the same pitch as F, but if you call it F in this context, you have a scale with no E and two Fs (F natural and F#). For this reason, it is more appropriate to call the note E# in this context. If we call the scale Gb instead, we get the same problem: Gb, Ab, Bb, Cb, Db, Eb, F, Gb. This contains a Cb, with would normally just be called B, but not in this context.
There are other similar situations, all of which really just go to show what the speaker was talking about: the problem with math and music notation. (But not really with music itself. If you want to get into the problem with math and music itself, look up "tempered tuning" sometime. )
Incidentally, there is another interesting thing about the black keys on a piano. If you only play black keys, you get an Eb pentatonic minor scale. According to my keyboardist, a lot of Stevie Wonder songs are in Eb minor because it's easier for him to feel his way around the keyboard if he's playing a lot of black keys.
As you may know, I played keyboard in my early teens. I always hated the the term "octave" and the names of the notes, as well as the black keys. To my opinion we should have a "dodectave", so no sharp or flat, no black keys.
Great vid! I also briefly used a slide rule when I was a freshman in high school- but it was plastic and on loan from the school-
I used it as well, back in '75 till '77 I think. Mine was made of plastic as well.Great vid! I also briefly used a slide rule when I was a freshman in high school- but it was plastic and on loan from the school-