D# or Eb? Why it matters

by Ari • 28 Mar 2019 — 1 minute read

A Quoran asked whether it matters to call the middle note of a C minor triad D# or Eb

D# or Eb? Oh, yes, does it ever matter.

Read my answer below. It is comprehensive, yet as always I like to give you shortcuts and immediately usable tricks.

You can skip straight to the tricks and shortcuts

That said, I highly recommend you do learn the basics I mention here.

It is so much easier to grasp this rather than it is to reinvent the wheel each time one of these chords comes around!

Enjoy! And if you are a bass player, put this on the fretboard and learn the shapes and fingerings that go with it. It is a magical combination!

Read Ariane Cap’s answer to Why does it matter whether I call the middle note “D#” or “Eb” when writing a C minor chord? on Quora


To learn music theory on the fretboard targeted for bass players, enroll in my course – it tells you everything you need to know to:

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  • and have it all be ♮ to you

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Hi. I'm Ari.

As a bassist, I have toured/played/recorded with a variety of rock, Jazz, and funk bands, I have worked with some incredible producers (Keith Olsen) and musicians (Paul Hanson, Muriel Anderson) and I toured Brazil with Stu Hamm as a duo.

 

As a bass teacher, I have taught at London Bass Day, Gerald Veasley’s Bass Boot Camp, SBL, Truefire, notreble… I even ran my own music school for a few years before gigs took me back on the road.

 

One thing to know about me is that I teach because I am absolutely fascinated with the learning process. And I am obsessed with helping others realize their musical potential.

 

When I started playing bass, I excelled very quickly because I had an amazing teacher who taught me using a powerful method. This method transformed my playing so quickly that I passed a bunch of high-level university auditions and even tested out of entire classes at university even though I had been playing for only a very short time.

 

That’s what, many years later turned into one of my books, co-written with Wolf Wein, called “The Pattern System for the Bass Player”. I created entire systems of learning based on some of these ideas and wrote books and created courses together with Wolf. Our bass books have sold over 30,000 copies and garnered rave reviews.

 

I started teaching online in 2009 and have embraced technology as a powerful learning tool since then, never losing sight of the importance of providing feedback and personalized guidance to learners.

 

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