PIANO MUSIC KEYS HOW TO
PIANO MUSIC KEYS SERIES

This is why looking at the key signature is one of the most crucial things to do when 1st approaching a piece of sheet music. Here is G Major/E Minor in the Bass Clef….Īgain, every time an “F” is seen in the music it should be played F#. Key signatures are found in Bass Clef as well. This means that every time any B or E is written it should be played B b and E b respectively. ….there are 2 b signs on the middle line (B) and the top space (E).

PIANO MUSIC KEYS SERIES

Key signatures with flats consist of a series of bs on the lines/spaces of the notes which should be flattened. Can you see that there is a # sign on the top line (F) of the stave? This means that every time any F is written in the music an F# should be played instead. ….This is the key signature of G Major/E Minor. Key signatures with sharps consist of a series of #s on the lines/spaces of the notes which should be sharpened. Key signatures are placed at the beginning of a stave to show which key the piece is written in and so which notes of the scale are to be sharpened or flattened. This problem is overcome by the use of key signatures. This would mean that I would be writing the # sign all over the page and it would look very untidy and difficult to follow. Well, if I was to compose a piece of music in C# Major then I would be using 7 sharps. So, why not just mark in where the sharps and flats are in a piece. These are called the Relative Major and the Relative Minor. One thing which does make the whole process easier is that every Major scale has a corresponding Minor scale with the same same number of sharps/flats. They will also need to think about the range of the instrument they are writing for and the difficulty of the piece (keys with a greater number of sharps and flats tend to be more difficult to play in). Bb Major is a very rich key, whilst F# Major is very bright in tone). Which note of the scale to write it on (different notes have distinctive tones to them.Whether to write it in major or minor (this will largely depend on what mood they are wanting to create).When a composer is writing a piece they will have to decide the following…. Each scale has a different number of sharps and flats in it. There is a major and a minor scale for every note (including sharps and flats) – this means that there are 12 major and 12 minor scales.ģ.

There are 2 main types of scale/key – Major and Minor (major sounds happy, minor sounds sad).Ģ. Scales and KeysĬrucial things to know about scales and keys:ġ.

PIANO MUSIC KEYS HOW TO

In order to understand key signatures when learning how to read sheet music we need to learn about scales and keys. Key signatures tell us what dialect/variation of this universal language we are speaking at any one time. However, there are variations within this language. Music is often described as the universal language.

Piano music keys