Originally Posted by: chrispike306I then looked at wikipedia to check I had remembered correctly, but instead of Asharp, it was Bflat.
Any particular reason for that?
This tutorial covers natural & accidental notes & how the musical alphabet is organized on the guitar fretboard.
https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=1136
The answer to your question is that A-sharp is B-flat. They are the same note, with 2 different names. The musical term for that is enharmonic.
The reason for 2 different possibles names for accidentals (sharps & flats) is one of perceptual convenience & conceptual clarity. Whether we call a note sharp or flat depends on the musical context of the song being played.
The default setting of naming a scale or key signature is to only use each letter once if possible. So, the key of G major has one sharp on F.
G - A - B - C - D - E - F#
Rather than:
G - A- B - C - D - E - Gb
That would be 2 letter Gs & potentially confusing in music notation. Once we get into music with 3, 4 or more sharps or flats things really get out of hand. So, when possible, we make all of the accidentals either sharp or flat.
Hope that helps!
