Just read through most of the comments on here before posting something... to find that you've covered it brilliantly. Textbook stuff, IMO (as someone who teac

Just read through most of the comments on here before posting something... to find that you've covered it brilliantly. Textbook stuff, IMO (as someone who teaches music technology and covers a lot of this when we get to notation). I've always found the best way to explain why keys end up with the sharps/flats they do in the order they do is to start from C, and establish the TTSTTTS construction, and then "arbitrarily" try it in a new key (G), and show that the seventh note needs to move up to retain the TTSTTTS pattern, and so on - same for flats, starting 'arbitrarily' with F, and showing that the 4th note needs to be flattened, and then in both cases getting the students to think about what's just happened (going up 5 scale steps (to G in the first case), sharpen the 7th of the new scale, or going down 4 scale steps (to F initially), flatten the 4th of the new scale), and using that algorithm to build the other keys. Most of the kids I know have almost no music theory when they come to me, and even those that are studying A level music often take the order of flats or sharps as "just something you accept" - it's interesting watching them switch onto how to build it themselves, and get some understanding of it as a result. Same goes for minor keys and indeed modes - the author of the article totally misses the point about the context of the notes being what's important - "home" notes as you say, and again, once demonstrated in the right way, it's interesting to see people switch onto that and become able to use it.