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You might have noticed on guitar chord websites or the occasional music text book, that in some European countries they have an "H" note! The origin and function of this H note is quite curious and is yet another example of how our contemporary music theory system is the product of over a millennium of uncoordinated change and development.
SOURCES:.
12tone, why do notes have names?:.
Early Music Sources, Solmization and the Guidonian hand in the 16th century:.
Felix Rogge, The note 'H' exists!:.
Comprehending the BACH Theme:.
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David, remember since the days of the white man(Spaniard) conquering(Native American Indian) MĂ©xico and all Latin America in 1519 and onward.. The Solfege notation system was brought over by the Spaniards and has been used in North, Central and South America.since then. Think in a more global and historical view. Not just England and Europe!
So we can laugh about notes
So we know where the flat and sharp sign comes from, but what about # ?
In Poland, fortunately the German system is used. The solfege system is also used – for singing.
Fortunately? H notation is totally nonsence đ
@MĂĄrton Andorka no â€
We also have H note in Poland, but I still use B because I learn the most about music on this channel đ
Iâm from Slovakia. We also have that and I still get confused after many yearsđ
@CherrySunburst Ow, there are plenty of things like that, some teachers use solfĂšge, also nearly everyone of people call minor and major scales “dur” and “mol”, sounds better in Polish, but makes things so unintuitive. We have even worse things: for example Mixolydian is still called in English, but Lydian is “Lydyjski” – changed to sound like adjective in Polish đ
I’d rather sound like a nerd talking about games with gamers’ slang, than use these things đ
@CherrySunburst I like the system with -is/-es better than the “flat” and “sharp”, but the H just makes no sense whatsoever.
Perfect system in my view would be to replace H with B and call the flat and sharp version of it “bis” and “bes” â problem solved.
I’ve mostly learned basic music theory from the internet 15 years ago, even today I have to pause for a second when talking about B in Polish đ
@MikoĆaj P. me quite an opposite – I graduated from classical music school while learning to play a violin in my teens, then as an adult I learnt to play a piano at private lessons. My teacher used English system and it got me really confused
1:58
What’s pretty interesting is that “durum” and “molle” sound very similar to “dur” and “moll” which are the German words for major and minor
in Poland we use dur and moll for major and minor as well
It might be because German as usual chops off their endings when introducing Latin loanwords. Dur is just durum without the -um, and Moll is just molle without the -e. (Same as Latin/Latein is latinum without the -um, and Dom is domus without the -us, Wein is vinum without the -um etc.pp.)
@kukquakk itâs durus and mollis ackshuallyâđ»đ€
It would be significantly more interesting if “dur” and “moll” were not directly derived from that …
@big shagger Yes, the masculine forms would be âmollisâ and âdurusâ. However I used the neutral genus which is not wrong. Usually you name all three forms but unless you have learned Latin before that is just confusing hence why I used only the neutral forms.
Whatâs funny is that the Bb addition to avoid the F-B Tritone is less of a solution and more of just diverting the problem elsewhere: because of the change, you now have a Tritone from E-Bb. So then you alter E to Eb, and so on and so forth until you eventually invent the current key signature system we use today.
You cant run
You cant run from the tritones
It was usually done while still in the key of C though. Itâs just going into the parallel minor for like 1 note.
itâs honestly kind of the opposite of the harmonic minor scale. That scale exists to bring back the leading tone to the minor scale
The cycle of fifths đ
all this because they couldnt handle something sounding cool lol
In Ukraine we use SolfĂšge as well, but sometimes also write European letters for notes.
I believe all Eastern Europe uses it, found the map in the video strange with Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Moldova omitted
Ukraine will win the war. Crimea will be retaken by July and Russian troops will be redirected to suppress insurrections in Russian cities by August.
I learned so much including the origin of ‘Dur’ and Moll’ in German. (which I teach!) There are so many things I learn from you that I never learned in my when I studied GCSE and A level music. Vielen Dank!
In the solfÚge system, at least in Portugal, the word for the flat symbol is «bemol», and the word for the natural symbol is «bequadro», which I always found weird. But now it strikes me that the first very probably comes from «B molle» and the latter from «B-quadro» (i.e., B square).
in Poland word for flat symbol is bemol too
same in french, bémol and bécarre
In Turkish the flat is also “bemol”!!
@enkiitu In French, they’re bĂ©mol, bĂ©carre, et diĂšse. When I first heard “sostenido”, I thought it meant “sostenuto”, which is the Italian cognate, and I called sharp “dĂesis”. A diesis is a microtone. Where does “sostenido” come from?
@Pierre Abbat yeah, I know diesis. For a while had no idea what that meant.
As for âsostenidoââŠ. I have no clue where does it come from, and it is such a looong word. And also, when you are sight reading you canât call the notes by their exact name. If you are singing you will always say âfaâ regardless if it is an f sharp, an f flat or a plain f natural. This method should be revised.
Fun fact: you can still have a Bess in the German/Nordic system. It’s just a doubly lowered H đ
As a German, I know the B double flat as Heses in addition to Bes.
5:17 Actually, the Dutch system also does this, but it doesn’t use the H, as you mentioned right at the start. So it also uses ‘bes’ and ‘ais’. It’s kind of halfway in between the German and English system.
Just like how Dutch is a sort off intermediate language between German and English
Sort of, but English itself has a heavy influence from French due to being invaded by the Normans, whereas Dutch does not have that, so it is (especially in vocabulary) far more similar to German than to English.
Fitting for dutch, which always sounds to my ears half way between German and English.
Among all of the highlighted countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina also uses H in stead of B. Since I grew up here I got used to using H, but whenever I do a YouTube video I remember that more people use B so I have to be careful. It never really made sense to me though especially since we use “Is” to sharpen the notes and “es” to make them flat, but when you get to H you get a B all of a sudden when you want a flat. Crazy.
As for the solmization of the notes there are also more then one way depending on the system you wanna use. Most widely known is “Do Re Mi Fa So La Si Do”, but here we use “Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do” for the same thing.
So get this, depending on the system, “Do” can always be a C note (and C# and Cb) or “Do” can be the tonic note of the key. Also, “La” can be the start of a minor scale because it’s the 6th degree so it makes sense, but you can also name the notes in a natural minor scale like this: Do Re Nja Fu So Lje Te Do (apparently Nja Lje and Te make you wanna sing the notes a bit lower and that represents the flat notes in a natural minor, if you wanna sing the harmonic minor you would just raise the 7th degree “Te” and make it a “Ti”). A loooot of different systems and a lot of confusion haha. Thanks for a great video, whenever somebody asks me about this I’ll just send them the link. You don’t even know how many times I’ve had parents come to me saying that we teach their children wrong notes because they saw online that B is actually H đ
Iâll be here waiting for the SolfĂšge video!đđ»
As an Italian Iâve learned notes with names, then when I started looking around I saw letter and it tricked me a littleđ
I tried to make up a system of âmappingâ letters to note names, and also the first thing I noticed was that we are more confortable using as the âkids learning musicâ scale with âDoâ (which is âCâ) instead with letters it starts with A (of courseđ , our âLaâ)⊠you cannot imagine how it was for me when I relised that, the âstrangeâ starting point wasnât random, cuz they were one the relative minor scale of the otherâŠđ€Ż
In Hungary we actually use both of these systems (SolfĂšge = SzolmizĂĄciĂłs rendszer = (Solmization System) DĂł, RĂ©, Mi, FĂĄ, SzĂł, LĂĄ, Ti, DĂł) đ
@shandu88 No ‘drink with jam and bread’ here đ
It’s funny you should mention the “kids learning music” scale–what you describe is kind of what I do in my head. When I’m trying to remember music in my head, I essentially use “Do Re Me…”, except I always covert it to “C, D, E…” No matter what key it’s actually written in, I call the tonal note C! At least in my head, C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C is easier to remember and use than Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do.
@RassilonSix exactly! Letters are just in alphabetical order, so much easierđ
as a Russian, i totally agree
I’m from Denmark, and I’ve also seen an even messier version, using H, but still naming Bb, simply Bb. I think I saw it in a beginner guitar book back in the day.
I honestly personally kind of hate the whole H-system, because it isn’t logical. Like, flat and sharp for all the notes just makes sense, it is more descriptive and literal in the language.
You also kind of have to learn both any ways, if you want to look up anything on the internet, so insisting on keeping the old H-system in use just seems a bit silly to me.
As an Austrian, I can say that the English system is like a million times better, and should be adopted worldwide.
Iâve learned solfege first and letter system later on so my natural way to start counting notes is âdo, re, mi etc.â The thing i donât understand is why did they labeled the note La as A instead of note Do or why is solfege starting from Do (at least thatât what iâve been taught) instead of La which is A so there wouldnât be much confusion? (I know that sentence is confusing but thatâs the way i could do :D)
Excited for the Solfege video. I live right on the border between Ontario and Quebec, which means working with musicians who have been brought up on movable Do system with seperate syllables for chromaticism on the English side, and musicians from the French side who are brought up on fixed Do, using “bemole” or “dies” (spelling might be wrong) for flat and sharp.
In Sweden, I’ve heard some people in the older generations were taught the “pure” German system with H but I feel that most people today, even (or especially?) within academic and educational contexts will say “Aiss” for A#, “Bess” to mean Bb, and “B” for B. That way, -iss = sharp and -ess = flat always.
The idea of the gothic-style b being replaced with a normal-style h makes a lot of sense, given that the mechanical press did change some letters throughout the diffrent alphabets of Europe. I had to think of the reason why the old latter for “th” in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet was lost and replaced with a “y” that way, too.
I grew up in Sweden and was classically trained on piano and clarinet. And then in my twenties i started playing jazz. I was so confused! Fortunately, nowadays most music teachers have abandoned the H note, and we say âbeâ and âbessâ most of the time when talking about B and Bb.
I wish that would be in Finland too… H is so confusing. Like how is it possible to have H between A and C…
Hello! Sweden does no longer use “H”. Some time ago there has been a general switch to B. Today almost only B is used.