The Complete Idiot''s Guide to Music Theory

Par t 1:Tones

These black keys are called sharpsand flats.Sharps and flats are halfway between

the pitches represented by the white keys on a piano; a sharp is above a specific

key and a flat is below a specific key.

Put another way, a sharp raises the natural note; a flat lowers the note.

Take the black key above the middle C key, for example. You can refer to this key

as C-sharp,because it raises the pitch of C. It also can be called D-flat,because

it lowers the next white key up, D. It may be a little confusing, but it’s true—

C-sharp is the same note as D-flat. And whenever you have two notes that

describe the same pitch—like C-sharp and D-flat—the notes are enharmonic.

Here are the dual names you can use for a piano’s black keys:

18

Aninterval is the

space between two pitches.

The smallest interval in

Western music is a half

step; intervals are typically

measured in the number of

half steps between the two

notes.

Definition

Two notes that

sound the same but can

be spelled differently are

calledenharmonic notes.

Definition

The black keys on a piano keyboard.

On a music staff, sharps and flats are designated by special characters placed

beforethe affected note. These characters, called accidentals, look like this:

Any modification

to a natural note is called

anaccidental.Sharps and

flats are accidentals; the

natural sign (used to return

a sharped or flatted note

to its natural state) is also

an accidental.

Definition

A sharp, a flat, and a natural sign.

That third character is called a natural.When you see a natural sign on a piece

of music, it means to return the specific note to its natural state, without any

sharps or flats.

It’s important to know that you can add sharps and flats to any note—even those

keys on a piano that don’t have black notes between them. So, for example, if

you add a flat to the C note, you lower it to the next note on the keyboard—

which happens to be B natural. (This means B natural is the same pitch as C-flat.)

Steppin’ Out ...

The smallest interval in Western music is the half step. On the piano keyboard,

half steps appear between the white keys B and C and between E and F. In all

other cases they appear between a white key and a black key—for example, D

to D-sharp, or F-sharp to G.