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Piano Module - Sharps and Flats

Piano Module - Sharps and Flats

A mini-lesson on how to read piano music sharps and flats. 3 min read (~346 words)

The information provided in this blog post is for educational purposes only. Please review our Disclaimer.

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,

Piece by Notes Machine circling sharps

The symbols for accidentals are:

  • double sharps ×
  • sharp ♯
  • natural ♮
  • flat ♭
  • double flat ♭♭

and they can look like this in music:

A visual guide to musical notes with accidentals in music notation. The image shows various notes, including natural, double sharp, sharp, double flat and flat notes, each with its corresponding accidental symbol. Accidentals modify the pitch of a note, raising or lowering it by a semitone.

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 and Whole tone example on a piano, a semitone is one step and a whole tone is two steps, both indicated with arrows.

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:

Sharps example on a keyboard and treble clef, three notes each have either a natural, sharp or double sharp symbol next to them and linking that to where it would be played on a keyboard.

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:

Flats example on a keyboard and treble clef, three notes each have either a natural, flat or double flat symbol next to them and linking that to where it would be played on a keyboard.


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