Piano Module - Sharps and Flats
A mini-lesson on how to read piano music sharps and flats. 3 min read (~346 words)
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Sharps and Flats
Sharps and flats, which are known as accidentals, are symbols that indicate which key your piece is in, as well as, altering the pitch of the note it is placed next to or near.
Here is an example of sharps indicating key,
The symbols for accidentals are:
- double sharps ×
- sharp ♯
- natural ♮
- flat ♭
- double flat ♭♭
and they can look like this in music:
These are organized by direction and semitones on a keyboard. Sharps go up a semitone and flats go down a semitone and naturals bring the note back to its original pitch.
Semitones
It will be easier to understand semitones with a piano:
Semitone can be thought of like a half step and whole tone like a whole step, it takes to half steps to make a whole tone.
C -> C# -> D is a whole tone C -> C# is a semitone and C# -> D is a semitone, equals C -> C# -> D a whole tone.
Sharps
Sharps go up so when you see a sharp next to a note, it is always played up one semitone or two if it’s a double sharp:
Flats
Flats go down so when you see a flat next to a note, it is always played down one semitone or two if it’s a double flat:
Sharps and Flats in Key signatures
These symbols can also be used to indicate a key a piece is played in. They show up usually next to the clefs. Key signatures can be viewed in another lesson Piano Modules - Key Signatures.