Australia??

No, Germany, Austria, some Nordic and some Central European countries - I don't know them all.

I first came across it when a chap asked for some modifications to a font suite I'd created for Noteworthy Composer.

I remember taking piano from my mom when I was a kid (she's Norwegian) and her telling me that I was playing something wrong, because I should be playing the "B" (meaning the Bb). I said I am playing the "B" (because I was playing the B-natural). She said no you're not, you're playing the "H". At that point, I think "H" stood for "Huh"?!?

Sam,

Many years ago I read a book called "Music Notation: A Manual of Modern Practice" by Gardner Read. He'll answer all your questions! I stumbled across the book in our local library and it turned out to be an excellent, enjoyable read. I'd highly recommend it.

Regards,
Noel

I made the original reference to the key of H, simple meaning that a person was singing in the cracks between keys. I was unaware that there was such a key.
I guess we learn something everyday on this forum.

Don S.

Sam,

H's development pre-dates Bach and came about from Guido D'Arezzo's method of teaching singing. D'Arezzo, an 11th century monk, used syllables from a Gregorian chant that corresponded to stepwise scale movement. His hexachord involved the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, and la: D'Arezzo's method was very revolutionary in its day and proved to be very effective! (I guess it's easy to see what these syllables eventually became )

D'Arezzo moved Ut, the tonic, to notes equivalent to our C, F or G depending on the pitch of the chant he wanted to teach. (This would be classed as a movable "Do" system today.) When considering the starting place of F, the 4th note (Fa) was Bb, but when G was the key note, the 3rd note was B. I seem to recall that this slight difference in sound for what theoretically (from an 11th century perspective) should have been the same note, led to H. I also seem to recall that this slight difference was thought of as "soft" (Bb) and "hard" (B) and that H developed from this.

Regards,
Noel

Interesting, Noel. Thanks for the xplanation!

Personally, I like the BACH idea - it makes it easy to remember to visualise a flat Bach! There is a Christmas parody song by Weird Al Yankovich 'Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer'. Maybe Bach got run over by a piano?

The designation gets even more confusing the day you are sitting in a Brass Choir and they call in a guest foreign conductor who pronounces it, "the key of Haitch".

And you're sitting there holding a Bb Trumpet, looking at a sheet that says, "Tromba in Re".

Can you transpose Bb Trumpet to Tromba in Re in the key of Haitch on the fly?

If the doggone sheet had been written for Tromba in Bb, then it would have been written to read in "our" Db.

Since the sheet was penned for D Trumpet, C on the sheet sounds as a Concert D so the on-the-fly transpose from C would be to think that the Haitch in D is a step down, or A. On the D Trumpet. On the Bb horn, that C becomes an E, two steps up.

Thank God it was mostly half notes.

20th Century Composers. Trying to do all that was not done before.

I think there was a good reason some of those things were never done before.


--Mac

Ever try to pick out Moon River on a Lute???

Just kidding....had my laugh for the day, just before bedie-bye. Thanks!!

http://www.thegigbaby.com

see why i love this forum?

You've a loooong way to go, kid

Though I thought B was ti?

Has nothing to do with Julie Andrews, she pronounced it correctly -- for the United States usage.

It is indeed "Ti" here in the US of A, "Si" in most EU countries, just another one of those language difference things.

Why that is, I do not know.

While you are ageing gracefully using the Queen's English, we here in the States are aging gratefully, and we do appreciate the humourous nature of such slight differences in language, as John has pointed out rather humorously recently.

But what I want to know is, "What colour is Si anyway?"

And, "Isn't Si the same as Haitch when in the key of Do?"




--Mac

I got the anniversary DVD of Sound of Music. The real Maria looked like a spinster!

BTW, potAto or potato let's call the whole thing off!

This goes back to what my first music teacher said in the first day of music theory class. "Here, you will learn all the rules on how we make music. Once you have perfected these rules... discard them and just play what is in your heart."

I'm recalling a music theory teacher who used to say that one had to first know the rules before they could break them or they wouldn't know if they were breaking a rule or not.

I used to ask why it was necessary to know if you were breaking a rule or not and never really got a good answer from that teacher.

Funny thing, a few years down the road and I was able to answer that question for myself.


--Mac