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In standard music notation, the order in which sharps or flats appear in key signatures is uniform, following the circle of fifths: F ♯, C ♯, G ♯, D ♯, A ♯, E ♯, B ♯, and B ♭, E ♭, A ♭, D ♭, G ♭, C ♭, F ♭. Musicians can identify the key by the number of sharps or flats shown, since they always appear in the same order.
Notes that are shown as sharp or flat in a key signature will be played that way in every octave—e.g., a key signature with a B ♭ indicates that every B is played as a B ♭. A key signature indicates the prevailing key of the music and eliminates the need to use accidentals for the notes that are always flat or sharp in that key. A key ...
Placing these clefs on a line fixes a reference note to that line—an F-clef fixes the F below middle C, a C-clef fixes middle C, and a G-clef fixes the G above middle C. In modern music notation, the G-clef is most frequently seen as treble clef (placing G 4 on the second line of the staff), and the F-clef as bass clef (placing F 3 on the ...
The duration (note length or note value) is indicated by the form of the note-head or with the addition of a note-stem plus beams or flags. A stemless hollow oval is a whole note or semibreve, a hollow rectangle or stemless hollow oval with one or two vertical lines on both sides is a double whole note or breve.
The staff below has a key signature with three sharps (A major or its relative minor, F ♯ minor). The sharp symbol placed on the note indicates that it is an A ♯ instead of an A ♮ . In twelve-tone equal temperament tuning (the predominant system of tuning in Western music), raising a note's pitch by a semitone results in a note that is ...
Accidental symbols are placed to the right of a note's letter when written in text (e.g. F ♯ is F-sharp, B ♭ is B-flat, and C ♮ is C natural), but are placed to the left of a note's head when drawn on a staff. Systematic alterations to any of the 7 lettered pitch classes are communicated using a key signature. When drawn on a staff ...
Western letter pitch notation has the virtue of identifying discrete pitches, but among its disadvantages are its occasional inability to represent pitches or inflections lying outside those theoretically derived, or (leaving aside chordal and tablature notations) representing the relationship between pitches—e.g., it does not indicate the difference between a whole step and a half step ...
When a musical key or key signature is referred to in a language other than English, that language may use the usual notation used in English (namely the letters A to G, along with translations of the words sharp, flat, major and minor in that language): languages which use the English system include Irish, Welsh, Hindi, Japanese (based on katakana in iroha order), Korean (based on hangul in ...