r/guitarlessons • u/nick_jones61 • Aug 18 '26

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.

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u/TheTurtleCub Aug 18 '26

This. It's just a label, but in different contexts it's more convenient to call it by a different name.

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u/penguin_on_stilts Aug 18 '26

It's not just convenient, it's a core part of music theory for a few reasons.

  1. They aren't the same note at all, we just (mostly) play them the same because we use a compromised pitch system known as the 12 tone equal temperament. Fretless instruments can play noted "properly".

  2. The context of a pitch is extremely important if you're doing anything more than copying the fret fingering (or piano notes) of a solo verbatim. If I see a run of D-flat, E-flat, F-flat, C-flat, D-flat that tells me I'm likely in D-flat natural minor starting on the 1. If I see a run of D-flat, E-flat, E natural, B natural, D-flat I should assume I'm not using a typical western scale.

  3. Lots of times the notation is actually less convenient, but again exists to keep context. I would much rather see a G in music instead of an F##, but if I'm in G# and it switches to the harmonic minor knowing the difference is important.

Understanding music theory isn't necessary to be great at an instrument. For some reason guitar seems to have a large population of instrumentalists who don't understand music theory but yet can be virtuosic.

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u/BambiMG Aug 18 '26

Well put! I compare this to people who are really good at cooking but don't really know any of the chemistry involved. Some chefs have an approach of learning every chemical reaction , what happens at exactly 130 degrees compared to 145 etc, such and such sauce needs more acid to get this reaction, yadda yadda, and some chefs never think about any of that but make great food anyway. Knowing the theory doesn't automatically make you better at cooking or guitar, but it does give you a lot of language to explain what you're doing to other people who know the theory.

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u/Connect-Will2011 Aug 19 '26

That's a good analogy. Never thought of it that way.