Keys Signatures information

You may have noticed in looking at your piano sheet music that there are some symbols

in the beginning of each line. If you are familiar with them, you recognize that they are

sharp signs and flat signs. The sharp signs look like miniature tic tac toe boards, and

the flat signs look like a lower case letter b. You may also run across a natural sign at

the beginning. A natural sign is made up of two right angles put together like an L and a

7. Sharps, flats, or naturals that are found in the beginning of a piece of music are

called the key signature.

The key signature of a piece of music is important because it tells the performer which

notes are to be played sharp, which should be flat, and which should remain natural.

These three “flavours” of each note have three different sounds, and playing music

using a particular variety of each note will give a different sound to the music being

played. For example, playing a piece where the entire A notes are played as A flat will

sound very different than playing the same piece using A natural or A sharp instead.

Composers use different key signatures for a variety of reasons. They may want the

music to be high enough or low enough in the staff for a particular singer or musical

instrument, so they change the key to accommodate the instrument they want to write

for. Other times, the key signature is used to create a particular sound the composer

had in mind. The key signature can give a piece of music an eerie sound, or a calm,

relaxed sound.