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In Western musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp (♯), flat (♭), or rarely, natural (♮) symbols placed on the staff at the beginning of a section of music. The initial key signature in a piece is placed immediately after the clef at the beginning of the first line.
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 ...
A typical five-line staff. In Western musical notation, the staff [1] [2] (UK also stave; [3] plural: staffs or staves), [1] also occasionally referred to as a pentagram, [4] [5] [6] is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch or in the case of a percussion staff, different percussion instruments.
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 ...
Following the clef, the key signature is a group of 0 to 7 sharp or flat signs placed on the staff to indicate the key of the piece or song by specifying that certain notes are sharp or flat throughout the piece, unless otherwise indicated with accidentals added before certain notes.
Systematic alterations to any of the 7 lettered pitch classes are communicated using a key signature. When drawn on a staff, accidental symbols are positioned in a key signature to indicate that those alterations apply to all occurrences of the lettered pitch class corresponding to each symbol's position.
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(Such key signatures are used for so-called theoretical keys which are almost never encountered outside music-theoretical exercises.) [b] Keys with 6 flats and 6 sharps, [c] with 7 flats and 5 sharps [d] and with 5 flats and 7 sharps [e] are enharmonic to one another. Composers will, in most (though not all) cases, choose only one key from each ...