From: "Doug Ewell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Stuart is absolutely right. "Enharmonics" like Câ and Dâ may share the > same "glyph" (outward appearance, sound)
I was told it was not true for some musical instruments like violin where sounds are modulated around a median tone, and for which a excercized hear can make the distinction between the two musical tones played by a good musician (because the violin allows effects that are not based on exact harmonics, that a musical partition cannot simply denote only with a simple position and a sign on the partition grid). So a tremolo played on Câ will sound differently than the tremolo played on Dâ, notably if the note is played on several chords, or the chord is pushed by the finger on the hamp of the instrument (on guitars) or the finger slides on the hamp of the violin. Also there are traditions in the way notes are named, depending on the main musical key of the partition which "drives" the tonality of a whole musical sentence. So Câ and Dâ are used in distinct keys and harmonies. This tradition of naming musical tones according to the key harmony is very strong in classical music. Other instruments are also concerned, notably the big and beautiful harmonic organs in chrurches, and even the modern electronic organs that allow lots of effects, even though each organ pipe or bell can play only one "note" (in fact they play a very rich range of harmonics and subharmonics).
