ACCIDENTALS, TONES AND SEMITONES AND KEYBOARD SKETCH

ACCIDENTALS

Accidentals are musical signs that alter the pitch of a sound. There are five types of accidentals and each of then perform different functions, they are;

·         Sharp ( ): a sharp increases a note by a semitone. The increase is represented by adding the sharp sign in a power form to the note that has been increased. For example, when C is increased by a semitone, it becomes C .

·         Flat ( ): a flat decreases a note by a semitone. The increase is represented by adding the flat sign in a power form to the note that has been increased. For example, when E is decreased by a semitone, it becomes E .

·         Double sharp: a double sharp increases a note by a tone. The increase is represented by adding the double sharp sign in a power form to the note that has been increased. For example, when C is increased by a tone, it becomes C .

·         Double flat: a double flat decreases a note by a tone. The increase is represented by adding the double flat sign in a power form to the note that has been increased. For example, when D is has been decreased by a tone, it becomes D

·         Natural: the natural sign restores a note that has previously been affected by any of the above four accidentals to its original pitch. For example, if A has been decreased by a semitone, it becomes A , for it to be restored back to A, u add a natural sign.

A word of caution; in text, the accidental follows the letter, as in A and A . On the stave the accidental precedes the note head.

When an accidental have been written, all other notes which are of the same pitch (or same position in the stave), are also affected by the accidental, but only until a bar line is drawn. Here’s an example:

1        is natural because we haven’t put any accidentals

2        is flattened by the flat symbol

3        is also flattened by the symbol from number 2

4        is natural because the bar line cancels the effect of the flat

5        is flattened by the accidental symbol

6        is neutralized by the bar line

TONES AND SEMITONES

A semitone is the shortest distance between two notes. A tone is equivalent to two semitones. Amongst the musical alphabets, natural semitones occur between B&C and E&F. A tone exists between every other alphabet. Since a tone equals two semitones, that means one can get semitones from the other alphabets where we have tones,.

A slur is used to show the presence of a semitone between two notes.

KEYBOARD SKETCH

The keyboard is a percussion instrument. It is made up of sets of black and white keys. The white keys are called naturals. This is because they are labelled naturally with the musical alphabet. The black keys derive their names from the white keys. The black keys are arranged in sets of twos and threes. The first white key before the set of twos is labelled C. The distance between two keys on the keyboard is a semitone

ENHARMONICS

The ability to write the same pitch in many ways is called enharmony.  When an alphabet is having more than one name, the other name is called en-harmonic equivalent. The complete set of accidentals and their enharmonic equivalents follows.

Bx C# Db

D# Eb Fbb

Ex F# Gb

G# Ab

A# Bb Cbb

B# C Dbb

Cx D Ebb

Dx E Fb

E# F Gbb

Fx G Abb

Gx A Bbb

Ax B Cb