Lesson Seven: Sharps Up, Flats Down

This post on music theory doesn't require a whole blog post as it's short and sweet, as the next few posts on the subject will be. But having said that, I must tell you about changing over from Beech Grove Elementary to Lowell Elementary in 1967.

I learned the value of rote memory from that move. At Beech Grove, I'd learned the multiplication tables up to the 6's. But when I got to Lowell, the class was already at the 9's. My father's mother Edythe, a former schoolteacher, drilled me with flash cards to help me speed-learn the 7's and 8's but it wasn't the same as chanting "One times seven is seven, two times seven is fourteen. . ." I always have to frown and think hard to do math in my head if it involves 7's and 8's.

Thus and forsooth, I say verily to thee anon that there are a few things in music you simply must burn into your brain so they never leave and you can recall them instantly at any time, anywhere in any circumstance. As you know if you looked at any of the previous Push Start Music lessons, I'm a strong proponent of understanding what you learn so you can put it in context. But. . .

. . .there are a few things you simply have to be able to repeat like a robot. You don't need to understand them now; sometime in the future, you will. But right now you need to make them solid and firmly established in your mind, using any method you have found useful to hang onto info that really matters.

The first of these must-know ideas is that sharps go up and flats go down. You could look at the signs and decide that the sharp sign looks like a ladder

and you are climbing up to the roof a la "Disco Inferno." (It helps because you can also think of John Travolta on the dance floor pointing up.) 

And the flat sign could be one of those strength testers where you hit the base and a a little slide zooms up to the top and rings the bell. You've just rung the bell and the slider has come back down to the bottom of the track again.

Or perhaps you can adapt the lyrics to "New York, New York," with dramatic finger pointing "The sharps go up and the flats go down, the people ride in a hole in the ground. . ."

Whatever you gotta do, do that. You don't need to know what s harps and flats ARE at this point. But you have to know that the sharps go up and the flats go down.