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by mkd1964 3559 days ago
Yes, I almost mentioned this point about A# and Bb on his blog but didn't. He gives an example of an A# major scale and it becomes immediately obvious that something's wrong. In order to write such a scale you either have to skip named notes (A#, C, D.. what happened to B?) or have a key signature that contains double sharps. That would be the "theoretically correct" way to do it but there are no key signatures with double sharps. So the correct name for the scale is B flat, which follows the diatonic major scale pattern of "wwhwwwh" and does not skip named notes.

But from his point of view (as any beginner) this is very confusing. They sound the same and they use the same physical keys on the keyboard, so what's the difference? There is no good answer to that except it satisfies the theory (the musical "rules") of western music.