This is the #musictheory humor I needed today.
How to Read Sheet Music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3WuQxnA7Hg
^ This one is great also, if you have some higher level music reading skills:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vegBe1175s4
@voltronic hmmm, had to slow this one down a bit for my level. And I was surprised by one of the very first points: as a kid, I remember asking if a C# and a Db were the same, and I was told there was a 1 coma difference, a sharp/flat changing the note by 5 commas (out of 9 for a full step). I was also told that (non-fretted) string instruments players, for one, would play a C# differently than a Db. Is any of this true?
@sgalzin
First of all, I'm extremely impressed that you learned any of that as a kid. Understanding commas in tuning systems is a pretty advanced concept, and I don't think any of my post-Masters work covered it. I just sought it out on my own because I love theory.
Secondly, yes, that's true too a small extent today, but not as much as it was a few hundred years ago, and not if playing alongside instruments with very fixed tuning (piano, mallets, fretted strings, etc).
@voltronic well I was mainly geeky / mathy, I guess :) But back to your point, that implies that a string quartet might pay attention to that... My cousin is in a string quartet, I'll ask him for an example maybe... will share if I get a good example, though I'm not sure my ears will be good enough to tell the difference :) thanks for the answer! (and yes you are right, a comma, not a coma :) )