[Must-see for piano beginners] Meaning and valid range of accidentals (sharp and flat)

This time I will explain about accidentals in musical scores.

Specifically, they are "sharp (♯)", "flat (♭)", and "natural (♮)".

I'm sure many of you have heard of the name and symbol.

I will explain what these mean in piano scores.

*Accidentals and key signatures have different roles. I will introduce key signatures in a separate article.

Sharp (♯)

First of all, it's sharp.

The meaning is "raise a semitone".

What does it mean to raise the pitch by a semitone?

To put it simply, raising a note by a semitone means changing it to a higher note.

The keyboard will look like the image below.

This time, to make it easier to understand, I will use the "re" sound as the standard.

As you can see from the diagram, if you raise "Re" by a semitone, it becomes the black key to the right of "Re". (Not "mi")

In other words, if you have a score like the one shown below,

Compatible keys are indicated by the blue circles in the diagram below.

Similarly, when "C", "F", "G", and "A" are added a sharp (♯), they are raised by a semitone, so they become the black keys on the right.

The sharpness is perfect now.

*Although you don't often see it, "shi" and "mi" do not have a black key on the right, and when they go up a semitone, they become the white key

In other words, "♯shi" (sharp of shi) becomes "do", and "♯mi" (sharp of mi) becomes "fa".

Flat (♭)

Flat means "lower the pitch by a semitone."

In other words, change only one sound to a lower pitch.

The keyboard is as shown in the diagram below, just like Sharp's explanation.

Therefore, if you lower "Re" by a semitone, it becomes the black key to the left of "Re". (Not "do")

In the case of a score like the one shown below

Compatible keys are indicated by the blue circles in the diagram below.

Similarly, the other notes will be the black keys to the left.

*Also, for "C" and "F", which do not have a black key on the left, when a flat (♭) is added, they become the white keys on the left ("C" and "Mi")

Valid range of accidentals

Accidentals have a valid range.

Just because it's "temporary" doesn't mean it applies to all subsequent sounds.

Basically, one measure is valid.

Natural (♮)

The meaning of natural (♮) is "to nullify the previous change marks (♯ and ♭)".

Therefore, even if the change symbol is within the valid range, if you add a natural (♮), it will return to the original sound with one hit.

Also, natural (♮) is also an accidental symbol, so it has a valid range.

In summary, it will look like the figure below.

If “Re” is lined up like this, it will cause a gestalt collapse (lol)

These are accidental symbols.