From: Doug Ewell (dewell@adelphia.net)
Date: Tue Mar 23 2004 - 11:47:23 EST
Stuart Brown <sbrown at extenza dot com> wrote:
>> Pronouncing C? as "D flat" is musically correct, at least in the
>> equal-tempered environment,
>
> I'm astonished at a Unicoder coming to this conclusion! C sharp is C
> sharp, and D flat is D flat. To conflate the two on the grounds of
> their auditory nature is no different to asserting that B is b (is ?,
> at least in the environment of my ill-educated pronunciation) ;-)
Stuart is absolutely right. "Enharmonics" like C♯ and D♭ may share the
same "glyph" (outward appearance, sound) but are different "characters"
(underlying identity). In fact, like two characters that may or may not
have the same glyph depending on the font in which they are displayed,
C♯ and D♭ may or may not sound the same depending on the instrument on
which they are played.
Enharmonics are the musical equivalent of spoof buddies.
-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
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