Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Those Perfect Fiths

I have a problem with perfect fiths. If I play simple tune, starting some note, and instead play it on its fith above, I sometimes won't notice the difference. In otherwords, if I accidently start on the fith, I won't notice it at first.

I don't quite understand why this is, I know perfect fiths are 3/2 the frequency of the base note. Is this just some transposing effect, that sometimes works out to sound the depending on the music and key signature?

it depends on tonic note or key signature, and to different tonic note, the perfect 5th (i.e. dominant note) is different.

You probably noticed this because the key signature of a piece that is transcribed a fifth upward is only different by one accidental. You add a sharp (or lose a flat, as the case may be) when you shift up a fifth. The changed accidental is always the leading tone of the new key (the seventh scale degree) in a major key. So if you play a musical passage that doesn't happen to use this note, it will sound the same.

Don
Kansas City

Thanks!

Eromlignod, that makes sense actually. I really have never transposed anything before, which is pretty lame. I understand the basic concepts though, and I can see why those fiths can confuse me sometimes.

-Bryan