Pitch Relationships
Senior 1 · Music
Pitch Relationships
Lesson 2 of 5
22 min
The seven letter names only give you the white keys. But music uses the black keys too: a song may need a note just a little higher or lower than a letter name. For those notes we add small signs called accidentals. You will find them in hymn books, school songs and every piece of keyboard music, so you need to read them quickly and correctly.
An accidental is a sign that changes the pitch of a note by a semitone, or cancels such a change.
| Sign | Name | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| ♯ | sharp | raises the note by one semitone |
| ♭ | flat | lowers the note by one semitone |
| ♮ | natural | cancels a sharp or flat: play the plain letter note |
On the staff, the accidental is written before the note head, on exactly the same line or space as the note. In speech and in writing it comes after the letter: we write F♯ and say "F sharp".
To play a sharp, move from the plain key to the very next key to the right. To play a flat, move to the very next key to the left. Usually this is a black key, so every black key is the sharp of the white key on its left and the flat of the white key on its right.
Worked example
Which key do you play for E♭? Start on E and move to the very next key down, to the left. That is the black key between D and E. So E♭ is the black key just below E.
Worked example
A melody moves from G up to G♯. How far has it moved? G♯ is the next key up from G, so the step is one semitone.
An accidental does not last forever. It affects its own note and every later note on the same line or space until the next bar line. The bar line cancels it automatically. Inside the bar, a natural sign can cancel it earlier.
In bar 1 the third note has no sign, but it is still F♯, because the sharp earlier in the bar is still working. In bar 2 the F is plain F again: the bar line has cancelled the sharp. The last note, B♮, cancels the B♭ from earlier in the same bar. Strictly, an accidental affects only notes on its own line or space; to avoid any doubt, careful composers add a reminder sign, called a courtesy accidental, when the same letter appears in another octave or in the next bar.
Tonic sol-fa has its own names for raised and lowered notes: a raised note ends in -e (said "ee") and a lowered note ends in -a (said "aw").
| Raised (sharpened) | de | re | fe | se | le |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lowered (flattened) | ra | ma | sa | la | ta |
With doh = C, F♯ is fe and B♭ is ta; these two are the chromatic notes you will meet most often in choir music.
Tip
Sharp goes up, flat goes down, natural goes home. Write the sign before the note, say it after the letter, and remember that the bar line wipes every accidental away.
Try each question first, then check the worked solution underneath.
Which key do you play for C♯?
Solution: The black key just to the right of C (between C and D).
Which key do you play for A♭?
Solution: The black key just to the left of A (between G and A).
A bar contains B♭ followed later by a B with no sign. Which note is the second B?
Solution: B♭. The flat lasts until the bar line.
Where exactly is a flat sign written for the note E♭ in the top space of the treble staff?
Solution: Just before the note head, in the top space, the same space as the note.
With doh = C, what is the sol-fa name of F♯, and of B♭?
Solution: F♯ is fe (raised fah) and B♭ is ta (lowered te).
Remember
Sources and credits
The lesson text, the accidental shapes, the notation and keyboard diagrams, the worked examples and the practice were written by Ganzaa.
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
