Enharmonic
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Related e |
Featured: |
In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note, interval, or key signature that is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature but "spelled", or named differently. Thus, the enharmonic spelling of a written note, interval, or chord is an alternative way to write that note, interval, or chord. For example, in twelve-tone equal temperament (the currently predominant system of musical tuning in Western music), the notes CTemplate:Music and DTemplate:Music are enharmonic (or enharmonically equivalent) notes. Namely, they are the same key on a keyboard, and thus they are identical in pitch, although they have different names and different roles in harmony and chord progressions. Arbitrary amounts of accidentals can produce further enharmonic equivalents, such as BTemplate:Music, although these are much rarer and have less practical use.
See also
- Enharmonic keyboard
- Enharmonic scale
- Music theory
- Music notation
- Accidental
- Octave equivalence, Transpositional equivalence, and inversional equivalence
- Diatonic and chromatic