Questions tagged [accidentals]
A sign (♯, ♭, ♮) indicating a momentary departure from the key signature by raising or lowering a note a semitone, respectively called sharp, flat and natural (which cancels a previous sharp or flat.The term can also indicate the note raised or lowered. Also found as a double sharp and double flat.
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Is there a musical term for notes that are sharps or flats?
I'm familiar with the term 'accidental' to mean a sharp or flat, but that's in relation to a particular key... and of course it includes naturals too.
Is there a general term to identify the black ...
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Chopin Nocturne in G minor Op. 15 No. 3 Measures 87-88 two same note (C#=Db) noted differently
Measures 87~88 of Chopin's Nocturne in G minor, Op. 15 No. 3, the C# and Db are the same note, aren't they? What's the reason to write them differently?
It's @2:30 of the complete video:
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Why is the notation in Chopin Sonata 2 for the same note using different accidentals?
In the score of Chopin Sonata 2, in the last part of 1st movement, I found different accidentals for same note. (In Bb major, once C flat, and then B natural.) Is there a reason for notating like that?...
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What's the cents value of these SMuFL accidentals?
I'm mapping SMuFL accidentals to their cents value for playback purposes.
So far, I am able to find references for most accidentals listed, but I am stumped on the following:
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Key change, from Ab major to E major
What do you do in these cases? I know that you need to compromise in order to make reading as simple as possible, using less accidental as possible. For example you are in Ab major key, which has 4 ...
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Is this an accidental or a key change? How do I tell for sure?
I am a beginner to music theory and notation and I am looking to resolve some quirks I run into whenever I'm writing music through notation.
Is the whole note on measure 3 a Bb or a B?
The argument ...
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How to write chromatic neighbors when the neighbor is diatonic and the chromatic note is the one being embellished
This image should sum up the question. Obviously I want to write a D# and an E# since they show the neighbor motion to the chromatic notes I am embellishing but that seems silly so I have done it this ...
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How many accidentals can there be in a song? (Can a song use all 12 notes and still have tonality?)
How many accidentals can there be in a song and it still have a clearly defined key, rather than sounding atonal?
Accidental's definition is "a temporary alteration of a note's pitch, moving it ...
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Where are triple flats used?
I came across a Wikipedia article, Flat (music), that says that triple flats are used extremely rarely, but it didn't give any examples.
So I want to ask you about that. Where are triple flats ...
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How can I write accidentals from distant keys in passing chords?
Here is a short phrase in Eb where there is a passing chromatic D chord. I wanted a blues sound so actually the flattened 3rd in the melody Gb is being written here as a sharp ^2 to go with the ...
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Please help me explain these accidentals (Vivaldi, Four Seasons)
These are excerpts from a score of the Vivaldi concerto RV293 which I downloaded from the Internet. The score looks like a respectable pre-computer era edition, I imagine it is not likely to contain ...
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Writing my first piano score; question about sharps, flats and naturals
I'm writing down my own songs scores. Since I don't play while reading scores myself, I was wondering if it was better to write all sharps as flats, even if it means that the natural ♮ symbol will ...
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When do accidental signs in multiple-staves ad lib section cancel?
I couldn't find any information so I decided to ask it here. I had some difficulty parsing these notes (Etude #7 from Lennie Niehaus' Advanced Jazz Conception for Saxophone). The notes in the ...
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How to know which note of the turn (or trill or mordent) the explicit accidental applies to?
As an example, in the beginning of Chopin Polonaise in Ab major posth. B.5,there is a natural sign under the turn symbol. In this particular case it seems obvious the natural sign applies to the D and ...
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Do accidentals have other meanings, or is their usage in this hymn all wrong?
A Setup for This Question: the 99%
I’m pretty sure that a handful of rules covers 99% of the usage of accidentals, especially in notation from the last hundred or more years. Let’s say 95% of their ...
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