Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Really really stupid question...

On page 117 of Alfred's One.
There is a song in GM.
Every single F in the song is naturalized.

So why did Alfred do this?

Could have saved a bunch of ink and made it CM. ... Doh!

How many B-flats?

Ron,

Good question! I used to think like you too... But here is what the experts say:



In this particular piece you pointed to (I found my wife's book), you see that the key is G Major as the last chord is G Major (measure 8).

Are you serious? The piece is in G major but uses flatted sevenths to give it that blues vibe. It uses the g blues scale.

Derelux.....no B flats

Amaruk....in other words.... If I were to push all those chords in the left hand up three notes to C in the base note. Especially the last chord. Then I could get rid of the sharps on F in the signature and call it C major. And I could get rid of all the natural signs on the F's.
Correct?
Only one slight little problem....it sounds awful.

It's not bad if I push everything up three notes.

Seriously...thank you.... I"m just trying to get a good grasp of chords and all. You helped me to understand.

Oh yes. I'm quite serious. This is a beginners forum. I'm just beginning to form an understanding of written music. I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about with "flatted sevenths". I must be playing them because you say so. ???

Flatted seventh is the minor seventh degree of the scale, or the regular major seventh lowered by a half step. For example, in A major, the flat seventh is G natural. In Cb major, it's Bbb.

really really really like the wiki definition of it.

i too would think "why bother?" if its in c major and only the B's are flat... like why not write in F?

Because the tonal center is not F; it's C.

I love how you say "naturalized."

Right! I finally get that now thanks!

Let me change my statement.
As far as the key signature is concerned. No B flats.
There are many B flats in the song though. Also B's that are natural.

It doesn't matter.

Thanks.... I still haven't figured out how to Green Card them.

Seriously....Thank You... You're helping me to understand.
You and Amaruk have done plenty to satisfy my curiosity.
I think you would agree that I shouldn't push it.... Just take the knowledge as it comes in my learning.

Sorry, thought it was G-minor, but now see otherwise through context clues in the thread.

The "tonal center" answers are probably the best ones, so I'll leave it to what's already written.

Maybe just for my ego's sake?
Just want to let you all know I may very well have read on my own and understood theory better by now. But...
My biggest problem is playing with both hands right now. Feel like I'm literally creating a place in my autonomic brain/nervous system in order to do this. It is a major problem. It's what I spend my time on.

Again...Thank You....

As someone who is often confused by key vs scale, this Wikipedia quote:

"Although many musicians confuse key with scale, a scale is an ordered set of notes typically used in a key, while the key is the center of gravity, established by particular chord progressions."

gives me some comfort. Now what could "the key is the center of gravity" mean? I know how to calculate the center of gravity of an object, but the center of gravity of music? Half the notes are above it and half below? Some sort of weighted average?

Why not write all music in "C" and just add the sharps and flats?

The key signature tells you where home base is. If you stopped on anything other than G, you wouldn't feel home. That's what the "tonal center" or "tonic" means. (Unless you're talking about a gin and tonic, that's something different ) Derulux was onto something though. They probably wrote the key signature in G major because that's the way a beginner learns keys. But there are more scales than major, which is why the question of minor came up. Based on the notes you described, it sounds like this is bluesy, and modal sounding, alternating between a mixolydian and a dorian scale. All this means is that notes of the scale are altered, usually making them "flatted" or lowered by one note. The difference between the 2 modes is the third scale degree, the B (G-1 A-2 B-3) which alternated from being normal and flatted (to B flat).

Technically, if this was written for anything other than a beginner book, you could use a key signature like C major with no sharps or flats. A player seeing that and hearing that G is the tonic would recognize that it's mainly G mixolydian or a G blues. Just like if it had 2 flats in the key signature and the tonic was still G, we would know it is in the G minor key.