Why the double sharp?

[tenrai]

I understand that the little "x" next to some notes mean that it should be raised two half-steps (Cx = D), but I don't understand why? Isn't it a lot easier to just write a D than to make up a new symbol? Please explain this.

[fuel925]

I understand that the little "x" next to some notes mean that it should be raised two half-steps (Cx = D), but I don't understand why? Isn't it a lot easier to just write a D than to make up a new symbol? Please explain this.

Its to do with the key of the piece and scales, if it said to play D, then it would still sound the same, but would in theory be incorrect. Maybe someone else can elaborate further.

[nightmarecinema]

In some cases it just makes more sense. I can't think right now of an example, and don't have time to look for one, but it usually is easier to read than a bunch of cancelations and accidentals...I dont' know, like, D#, D, Db, you'd do D#,Cx, C, so that it looks more like a descending line, or something.

[fra ungdomsdagene]

I understand that the little "x" next to some notes mean that it should be raised two half-steps (Cx = D), but I don't understand why? Isn't it a lot easier to just write a D than to make up a new symbol? Please explain this.

From Basic Music Theory by Jonathan Harnum

"There are several ways to say the sound to, two and too. Even though each sound exactly the same, they have different meanings. Just as you wouldn't write "I went two the store" so you wouldn't spell a Db diminished with a G.
The Db triad is "spelled"  Db, F, Ab.
For a diminished chord the third and the fifth of the chord of the be lowered of a semitone. A semitone down from F is E and a semitone down from Ab is G. But even though that those pitches would sound correct , you can't write them and still have a Db diminished triad. That Db, E, G triad would sound exactly like a Db diminished chord but the way it's written, the chord is actually an inverted E minor minished 7th."

They're also used to maintain the implied key when there's a brief modulation to another key. But still I don't always understand the need for double sharps or flats.
For example bar 42 of Schubert Impronptu op.90 n.3, we have a Ebb but the reason why a D couldn't be used is not clear, to have a D natural (it is flat in the key signature) instead of an Ebb wouldn't be more confusing.

Fran

[cfortunato]

Pure perversity.  It gives the anally retentive something to nitpick over.

You will be told that a scale needs to present noted in a certain way and in a certain order.  So a scale of C# has to include an E# - not an F - because after C# and D#, the next note HAS to be a type of E, not an F.  Followed by F# and G#.  So if you need to use a G natural, it must be presented as a form of F and therefore is called F double sharp.

What no one will give you is a sensible answer as to WHY it must be done this way, because there really is no sensible answer.

My old teacher used to answer questions like this by saying (insert thick Russian accent here) "Maybe composer is crazy."

[ted]

When I write out my music, I operate on the principle that the best way is that which is likely to be easiest for most players. If the music is clearly mostly within a key having a lot of sharps or flats, then I usually err on the side of correctness and use the occasional double sharp or double flat. However, there are many exceptions, such as if the music passes through sections of well defined but unrelated and changing key, in which case it seems clearer to me to insert completely new sets of accidentals. Say if a section mostly in F# is followed by a section in Bb, then I think a complete change is much easier and more obvious to the reader than writing masses of double accidentals. Even in music which is pretty well atonal, I tend to think writing accidentals as nearly as possible as they occur in tonal groups is easier to read than a completely arbitrary splatter of accidentals. For example Gb,Bb,Db seems to me more sensible than Gb,A#,C# because most people probably find it easier to think and recognise the former than the latter.

So for me the final arbiter is communication and how best to achieve it. Mostly this also implies writing conventionally or, in the case of wildly different music, in such conventional groupings as to afford maximum readability.

This is just my personal view, as I have had no theoretical training at all.

[mrdaveux]

OK, the explanations given aren't too bad, I agree (making sense within a tonal framework requires the use of double accidentals). And like all systems, the tonal one needs laws to support itself, and nothing can escape these laws or the system would just collapse. And sometimes convenience is sacrificed for the sake of these laws, which is the case with these F double sharp instead of G. By the way,  it wasn't always so because when we didn't have equal temperament, f-sharp and g-flat would actually sound different (which is still possible on an instrument without fixed pitch such as the violin). But that's another matter.

The question that remains is simple then : do you like systems or not? Systems provide security because they make sense : everything in place, explanations and functions to every member of the system etc. The reason rules. And you can become quite quickly a academic pedant, shooting down any Debussy who happens to write stuff down just cause it sounds good whether it fits in the system or not. But who in the world said that music is to subject to such rules? Music is passion, emotion, no system has the right to contain it. Systems are made to be broken (somebody said Schoenberg?). So let's throw all double sharps and flats over the bridge, together with hour harmony books and analysis anthologies by Mr Doctor whatevers.

On the other side... Anarchy is probably not the best philosophy in music or anywhere, and rejecting 3 centuries of music making is probaly not very reasonable. After all, Bach, Beethoven and Brahms all used double sharps... it must have made sense to them. So saying that we don't want to use them because they're naughty is a little childish. We should learn about the system before we sentence it. Ignoring the rules because they seem too difficult is as much proof of ignorance as trashing someone who prefers to ignore the rules for the sake of music. Learning about the system enables us to gain a deeper apreciation of those who used it in their works (mostly everybody using tonality). So study you Doctor whatever harmony books and you'll be better equiped to play the music you cherish. And if, once you have the knowledge, you decide to throw the double sharps and flats over the bridge, well good for you!

It's a little like the debate going on in linguistics about the use for syntax. I'm sure many of us have found that some (not to say most) rules of grammar are totally stupid and plain annoying, and spelling words can be as inconsistent (and English is not too bad compared to other languages). Yet we're ready to burn anybody on this forum who makes a spelling or syntax error... A status thing. If you don't know all these rules invented for unknown reasons by masochist academicians, you are guilty of uneducation of the first degree. Should we do away with syntax? Should we write the language phonetically only? It sure would be easier... I wonder what Shakespeare would think... Oh well, music or linguistics or any field finishing in -ic, the questions are always the same...

[cfortunato]

[[A status thing. If you don't know all these rules invented for unknown reasons by masochist academicians, you are guilty of uneducation of the first degree. Should we do away with syntax? Should we write the language phonetically only? It sure would be easier... I wonder what Shakespeare would think...]]

Not a good example.  In Shakespeare's time, spelling was not codified, and he DID spell rather phonetically, and inconsistently, spelling the same word more than one way, and did things with syntax that would now be considered plain ungrammatical ("This was the most unkindest cut of all")

[dmk]

I always explain it this way....

A scale is defined as eight notes played or sung in order

eg...A B C D E F G A

so you have to have all eight notes in order, thus the necessity for a double sharp in the western tonal system.

The sensible answer to why it is done this way is because THAT is how a scale is defined as is what the tonal system is based upon. 

cheers

dmk

[cadenz]

okay here's my answer to try and help shed some more light upon it.
there is no reason why one /must/ use double sharps, if you wrote your own music, by all means you may write in your Fx as G. however, if you are writing a piece in the tonal system, you have to realize tonal music is a style where there are certain guidelines, and rules (which are there to be bent).
there is no reason a composer must display the music in a certain way on the page, it is just going to sound the same however it is written! although, composers like to put across a certain element of the theory behind the piece in their manuscripts. and there are conventions on how to do this. It is kind of like baroque appoggiatura suspensions being used instead of their written out version (i think unless someone wishes to dispute this).
here is an example which the use of a double sharp actually makes something easier to read:
say you have a chord of D# major triad. You could spell it like this: D# G, A#. however, on a page, this will not look like a major triad, and probably would cause someone reading the music to fumble for a moment as it looks a lot different on the page. as you have a D# then a G a diminished 4th above it, then an A# an augmented 2nd above that. and we don't think of major chords as diminshed 4th + augmented 2nd. We think of them as Major 3rd + minor 3rd. So it is much better to spell a D# major chord as: D#, Fx, A#. Because then it looks like a major triad on the page and is thus easier to read.

hope this helps you accept their usefulness.

[tenrai]

Thank you all very much! I understand perfectly now. 

[fra ungdomsdagene]

No one mentioned visual aesthetics.
Yes music is about the ear and listening but clearly there was an important interest also for the way music appears.
We had keys which were characters and now they're artistic signs.
All the teachers I know in accademies are often more worried about the way your playing looks than the way your playing sounds. Your hands must move beautifully not only in the right way to produce the right sounds. The evolution of music notation doesn't reflect just a  need for better communication with the music language but a need for visual artistic value. Every bar of the music sheet is worried with its appareance like the cover of precious book.

Fra