What is harmony? Simply the business of playing more than one note at the same time. A lot has been written about this subject over the last few centuries, much of it under the title of "theory". In this series we will view harmony as "fact". The fact in question is that certain combinations of notes have an urge to move to certain other combinations of notes.

Whether this urge is a result of the physical properties of note combinations or some culturally specific programming is beyond the scope of the series. I don't know if a martian or a child kept in a cupboard until the age of seven would feel the urge to move and for the purposes of these articles I don't care. This is practical harmony based on the western musical system not speculative philosophy. Right! I feel much better having got that out of the way. If we bump into some other stuff which I'm going to ignore I will use the word "hoocairs". This will avoid me veering towards philosophy again. If we are going to discuss groups of notes then we need to know where we are going to select them from. Western music (I don't mean cowboy songs) uses twelve notes each of them separated from the next by a distance in pitch called a semitone (When we talk about difference in pitch we are talking about how much higher or lower one note is from another. For example the first note of "Mary had a little lamb" is higher than the second. When we sing the first note and then the second we are descending in pitch.) We use letters of the alphabet and a few other signs to name the twelve notes I just talked about notes. The letters that we use are:

A B C D E F G

Yes, we stop at G, there is no H (well actually there is in the German tradition but hoocairs!) Now if this system was simple and logical there would be the same distance between each of the adjacent letters but its not and there isn't. (There are complicated acoustical and historic reasons for this but hoocairs.) Some of the letters have a note between them and some don't. If we start at A, the next note is a semitone above and is called A sharp (written A#). A semitone above A# is B. Let's have a look at this list, each note ascending by a semitone:

A A# B

Obviously "#" means " a semitone higher" so A# is a semitone higher than A. Just so the system doesn't stay too simple, there is another name for A#. Notice that A# is not only a semitone above A, it is also a semitone below B. There is another term used to mean "a semitone lower than". This term is "flat" written "b" (no its not a letter b even though it looks like one). So A# (A sharp) is also called Bb (B flat). Obviously "b" means " a semitone lower" so Bb is a semitone higher than A. Let's make our ascending list again:

A A# B
or
A Bb B

Following the logic of the system so far, we would expect the next note to be called B# or Cb. If you haven't realised by now that the system is not straightforward and logical then you haven't been paying attention. The next note is, in fact "C". yes that's right, there is only a semitone between "B" and "C". (There are complicated acoustical and historic reasons for this but hoocairs). This also means that there is no note between "B" and "C" (that is if we ignore microtones but hoocairs!) Lets have a look at our list of notes ascending by a semitone and with their alternative names supplied:

A A# B C
or
A Bb B C

Now for some good news! All the letters either have or don't have a note between them. And since we've covered the process for both situations we have it all! (well this bit anyway). We know that "B" and "C" don't have a note between them, the only other pair like this is "E" and "F". You can remember this by the following deathless poetic creation:

"Every Fat Bus Conductor"

If you find the word "Fat" offensive to the emaciation disadvantaged or if you are too young to remember what a bus conductor is, make up your own phrase, I can't do everything. Now... let's put all this information together and see all the notes available in order, ascending by one semitone and including alternative names (phew!!):

A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G
or
A Bb B C Db D Eb E F Gb G

At this point it is usual to show a diagram of a piano keyboard. The reason is probably because the way a keyboard is set out demonstrates clearly the pattern we've just been talking about. (I realise that this won't necessarily be of any assistance to you if your instrument of choice is the piccolo but...tough!).

The Piano Keyboard (also the same keyboard used on organ, synthesiser, piano accordion (hence the name), melodica, xylophone, glockenspiel, vibes etc, etc...)
Thispattern continues both left and right forever (theoretically!) Remember that on the keyboard the further you move to the right, the higher the notes go (in pitch), the more you move to the left the lower the notes go.

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