What key is this? Can this be real? I came across a meme

How come there are flat and naturals on the same line? What does this mean?
Am I being trolled and this is bullshit?

Please enlighten me.

8 Likes

Well I am pretty much a master of reading music because I finished B2B last week. I think this is a trolling of high order but will wait to hear what someone who actually can read will say!

2 Likes

It probably means that the piece here is going from previously D major (B minor) to now Gb major (Eb minor), which is a “silly” key as almost every note is flattened, which for, e.g., horn players is a bit tricky (hence probably the “bitching” comment). The naturals make sure that you realize that the piece is no longer in D major, but that there is a new key valid from here on.

That would be my best guess here, without seeing more of the sheet music…

4 Likes

But the C (assuming this is treble clef) is both naturaled and flattened. Makes no sense to me.

2 Likes

Total troll job, IMHO

2 Likes

Youd have to play it for me to tell. I play by ear.
After 20 some odd years, I had to miss a gig a few years back, because of hospitalization.

The girls in my band found someone to sit in.
I asked if the person could read music, and when they said yes, I was relieved.
People who read only play what they see, not what they feel.
I never felt threatened.

4 Likes

I already got this explanation from the comment section of the meme.
So I can see the naturals as “reset this, not sharp anymore” and the actual key would be the 6 bs. The naturals are “just” to make aware of a key change and it would also be correct to note the keychange with “only” 6 bs?

4 Likes

As far as I know, the only time you use naturals in a key signature is if you’re changing to a key that has no sharps of flats so neither of those naturals should be there. Also as someone pointed out there’s both a c natural and c flat there’s which is also a big nope.

2 Likes

+1, this is a joke AFAICT

3 Likes

8 Likes

It must be, because the flats are to be placed in order following the circle of fifths/fourths, so you always go B E A D… That way you don’t even need to look at the symbols but you just count how many there are.
Now this being a trolling joke one could imagine that they have broken this conventions but it seems unlikely. Not even trolls could go against the circle of fifths.

2 Likes

Yes, that would be my best guess. The naturals are like an extra reminder that a key change is about to occur. At every new line start from here on, there will only be the six flats.

D major has two sharps (F# and C#) which are first naturalized and then the C is flattened by the new key (Gb major; 6 flats) - nothing strange here.

This is all based on just seeing that one frame and assuming the tune is in D major before and Gb major afterwards, which is a fairly safe assumption. Whether this all makes sense from a musical/compositional point of view is a totally different question.

3 Likes

Yes to this.

And the fact that there are hilarious notes above (play without bitching about the key) is something I love to put in my charts.
This could very easily be a piece of real music written by someone who is used to people looking at a composition in Gb major and moaning and groaning.

I love it.

6 Likes

Anyone know what instruments would see Gâ™­ or even worse a Câ™­ key signature on a regular basis. :thinking:

1 Like

I want to commission a print of a big, illuminated, hand painted Circle of Fifths with everything between E on the right side and Ab on the left (maybe even Eb) labeled like an old map — Here There Be Douchebags

2 Likes

And to answer the original question, I firmly believe that this is a very funny Song in the Key of Troll

2 Likes

That’s not how key signatures work. You dont naturalize something in order to flat it, you just flat it and you dont have to tell anyone the F is natural, it’s natural, as soon as you see a Bb and dont see an Fb.

2 Likes

You’re not going to find a lot written in this key signature ever, the only things written in that are things where a composer decides to write pieces in all the keys or they just want to be difficult. You’d probably see this more on piano scores at it has all the black keys. For other instruments, F# minor is probably more common. I played in an orchestra for 5 years and I don’t know if i ever saw anything past 4 flats/sharps.

Consider that Fb is E and Cb is B so that’s just ugly and only jazz is worse :joy: Instead of Cb which has 7 flats, you’d probably use B which “only” has 5 sharps.

3 Likes

One thing that piano noobs don’t realize for a while is that playing the black keys is physically easier than playing the white keys; that’s part of why you see scores in keys like Bb minor :rofl:

(ok, that and there’s a ton of Bb instruments - but seriously, Bb minor is much easier to play in that you would think)

3 Likes

It seems quite a few composers did have a, lets call it a sense of humour and did delight in causing trouble for musicians…

“Apparently Mozart had an extreme dislike for the soprano Adriana Ferrarese del Bene, for whom the role of Fiordiligi was first created. She had a strange tendency to drop her chin and throw back her head while singing low and high notes respectively, and knowing this, Mozart chose to fill her showpiece aria (“Come scoglio”) with constant harmonic leaps. Presumably he took great pleasure in watching her bob her head “like a chicken”.”

I cannot confirm that this is true though as there were no smartphones in the 18th century for anyone to get video of this.

1 Like