I was arranging vocals with chords for my choir and ran into major clashes with the conductor due to this mismatch (the song had unfortunately been in the key of E, go figure), hence I started to wonder.
Surely some of you are aware of this concept, it's quite common among a certain generation of classically schooled musicians, piano players in particular. But, for those who aren't, the basic premise is simply that they learn what most here (and BBox!) call the note B, as H, and subsequently what most here (andBBox!) call the note Bb, as B.

Now, my question is if any of you have seen a way to make BBox define those notes in that "classicist" way?
And then things get even more complicated when considering that pressing the H key on your computer keyboard already has a defined function in BBox... plot thickens indeed

Sure, we've discussed that here.

As far as I know, there is no way to have BIAB accommodate it, at least with the English language version. I can't say if there is a different language version that might.

John Ford here in particular is familiar with Scandinavian music conventions. As I understand it, H is also used in some German music.

Yeah, I've heard of it referred to as "the German system" (as opposed to "the English system"), but I hadn't really considered this to be more widespread in my Nordic region until you mentioned it just now... which stands to reason, German influences carrying over the border to Denmark and so on.
It's probably the least common in America of the Western world, I'd guess (just a feeling), so I shouldn't really be surprised BBox hasn't accounted for it.
And as I said, with hotkeys already firmly in place, this one is probably far more complex to crack than it's worth, but it's an interesting little conundrum, innit

I've also known it as the German system, but although I've played a lot of classical music I've never seen that here in the USA.

I suppose I would have a hard time adapting to that at first if I were to move to the part of the world that uses that convention. But like the minor differences between the flute and the sax I suppose I'd eventually be able to do both without a problem. (The B, Bb, C fingerings on the flute and sax are close, but different while the majority of the rest are the same, at least in the lower two octaves).

The H thing just seems illogical to me, but I'm sure there is a historical reason behind it.

There is more than one right way to do almost anything.

Insights and incites by Notes

I've never heard of doing either. A thru G with all the half steps and it starts over.... doesn't go to H.

and Bb is B flat, not B.... half a step different.

Bb trumpet.... not a B trumpet.

Seriously, I've never heard of doing either.

This may or may not help but what if you took the BiaB score into a real scoring program and changed the B chord to an H chord there?

FWY - the key of E is a guitarist's key so I'll bet that the composer of that song was either a guitarist or a singer who's range was in E.

[edit] - an afterthought. What if you took a screen shot and changed the chord in a photo program or printed the score in a PDF document and changed it there?

This is where I would insert the popcorn eating emoji if this forum had one. This is fascinating to me, but I've never heard of it before (perhaps revealing my lack of deep classical training).

The fact that it uses at least one 'out of place' letter makes me wonder if perhaps going back to alphabet study might reveal a time-alignment with the evolution of the modern alphabet and letter order; particularly with the evolution of the various German alphabets.

My guess is that perhaps there might also be some relationship to a specific mode which includes the Bb, B, C sequence, but with the B position as the 8th position in the scale (corresponding to 'H').

The first "urban myth" explanation I heard was simply that the capital H looks very similar to the capital B on a lined sheet. Not sure if that's the actual source for these two different styles, but they've both prevailed through centuries for some reason. There are even classical themes derived from for example the name Bach (the notes B-A-C-H or what most of you would write as Bb-A-C-B, if you wanna try it on your instrument), so I'm tempted to think the H method is quite old.

That would be the latter here - and I know this for a fact simply because the 'composer' in question is ME
I was rearranging one of my songs for a mixed (adult) choir and the lowest comfortable note you can set for the male basses is E. That, in return, also meant a lot of B chords, which as i say confused the hell out of our conductor who accompanied us on the piano.

Well spotted

The only context I ever heard of that is when my band played and the owner of he place told me to "Get the H out of here!"

My mom, who is Norwegian, learned that a B is an H, and a B-flat is a B. Once I got into band, we had several miscommunications. When we played 4-hand piano, she said play a B, and I would play B natural, when she meant B-flat.

Yes, Mr. Ford, as you can see, your name was mentioned very early on in this thread, so I was wondering when you'd show up

While the below is taken from a Wikipedia article called The Guidonian Hand, it explains my understanding of the musical B and H (soft B and hard B respectively) from a book by Gardner Read called Music Notation. I stumbled across this book many years ago when I was trying to find out why a Bach work I had seen had "H molle" in its title.

The following quote is found in the above article's section called "The Hexachord In The Middle Ages". As I understand them, hexachords were very important in the aural teaching of singing when the availability of instruments was scarce and notation was just beginning to develop.


Regards,
Noel

Thanks for posting that Noel!

yup... been there, done that too.

"But we have a contract....!"

" So sue me or better yet, set your %#&t up down at the sign in the parking lot, just get the "H" out of this club and don't come back"

Loved that linked reference, Noel, very much up my geekiness alley

Eddie,

Given your above thought, if you ever get the chance to read Gardner Read's book, I suspect you'd really enjoy it. It's a great history of how Western music and notation developed. I really enjoyed it. Here's a link to show you which book I mean.

Music Notation

Regards,
Noel