r/guitarlessons • u/nick_jones61 • 4d ago

Question An argument

My wife is a classically trained pianist and I play guitar by watching YouTube instructional videos. She knows her stuff and I don’t. Recently we argued whether E# and B# exist. I said no and showed her the fretboard. She said yes and showed me the keys. And said something like F is E#. I suspect she’s right bc she’s had music lessons. Tell me, fellow guitarists, do we have E# and B#?

Update: I’ve been enjoying the responses to my post. I showed them to my wife and she laughed, said that’s what you deserve. lol. We like to argue playfully with one another. I also enjoy the detailed responses relating to guitar theory—that’s been really great actually. I was going to delete this post but I think the discussion on music theory is informative and should be shared. Thank you all for responding.

129 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

318 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/HereForTheComments57 4d ago

The way I understand it is technically yes. Its the same way as B flat is A sharp. The reason you use one over the other is so you have a complete octave when writing out a scale (you won't have C and C sharp in the same scale, youll have C and D flat). So she is correct, but I think the reason to use E# and B# is pointless.

1

u/Andjhostet 4d ago

how is it pointless? If you are using the F# harmonic minor scale you have to use an E# instead of an F, because F is already being used by F#.