In music theory, the term "accidentals" is used to
describe some notes which have been slightly altered. Accidentals are the
symbols which are placed before the note on the stave - they can be
"sharps", "flats" or "naturals".
In this unit we'll have a look at what accidentals are exactly,
and how they are used in music theory.
The
Octave
To begin, let’s look at a piano keyboard again.
The yellow note is middle C, and the green note is the next C
above it. How many different notes are there between these two Cs?
If we count all the black and white notes, we’ll find there are
12 different notes. (Don’t count the C twice!) This span of notes is called an
"octave".
This isn’t only true for the piano – every instrument uses the
same series of notes.
Sharps
and Flats
So, we have 12 different notes, but we only use 7 letters of the
alphabet. We use the words “sharp” (=higher) and “flat” (=lower) with a letter
name, to cover all those “in-between” notes. Sharps and flats are two kinds of
"accidentals".
We can use symbols for accidentals, instead of the words sharp
and flat.
Sharp
symbol
Flat
symbol
Find the notes C and D on this keyboard:
They are both white notes (but we've coloured the C in yellow to
help you find it!). In between them, you’ll see a black note.
We can
say that this note is a bit higher than C, so it is “C sharp” (C#), or we can say it
is a bit lower than D, so it is also “D flat”
(Db).
Here’s another example.
Find the notes F and G. The black note in between F and G can be
called F sharp (F#) or G flat (Gb).
The third type of accidental we are going to look at is called
the "natural".
We use the word “natural” (or the symbol )
to say that a note is neither sharp nor flat. This is very useful, because
sometimes when a note has already been altered by an accidental (flat or
sharp), we need to put a natural sign in to tell the player that it isn't flat
or sharp any more. Flats, sharps and naturals make up the main accidentals, and
they are the only accidentals you need to know for grade one music theory.
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