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∙ 13y agothe way to remember the order of sharps and flats is to remember a rhyme:
the sharps: Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle
for flats you just swap it around and it goes like:
Flats: Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father
simple really
Wiki User
∙ 13y agoThere are BEADGCF flat and FCGDAEB sharp in that order.
When adding sharps to a key, the order is F, C, G, D, A, E, and finally B. With flats, it's the exact opposite.
When adding flats to a key, the order is B, E, A, D, G, C, and finally F. With sharps, it's the exact opposite.
Identifying any major key is simple: The key of any song is notated at the beginning of the piece with a number of sharps and flats. The sharps and flats are always listed in the same order. Flats: B,E,A,D,G,C,F Sharps are the same but in reverse Sharps: F,C,G,D,A,E,B the listing of sharps and flats will always go in that order. example: 4 flats listed will go B,E,A,D For flats the key is notated by the second to last flat listed. In the above example that Key would be the key of A. For a song with 4 sharps (F,C,G,D) the key would be 1/2 step up from the last noted Sharp. 1/2 step up from D makes this the key of D#
Bb, Eb, and Ab--in that order. The order of flats is always B, E, A, D, G, C, F; the order of sharps in the reverse: F, C, G, D, A, E, B.
Sharps and flats follow a pattern of fifths, so it is not difficult to construct a list of all the sharps and/or all the flats. Additionally, there are simple tricks to determine which sharps or flats are in a key signature.Flat keys are called flat because they have flats in the key signature, while sharp keys have sharps, so you won't find any sharps in D-flat. But how many? Flats and sharps have their own patterns and tricks.First, flats:The key of C has no sharps or flats. The key of F, which is one fifth below C, has one flat, which is Bb. The key of Bb has two flats, Bb and Eb. The key of Eb has three flats, Bb, Eb, and Ab. The key of Ab has four flats, Bb, Eb, Ab, and Db. From here on out, the flats continue in this pattern: the next flat is one whole tone lower than the second-to-last previous flat. So the order of flats is: Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb, Fb, B-double-flat, etc.Sharps proceed in the same way, except that you ascend a fifth each time:C has no sharps or flats. Its leading tone is b. The key of G has one sharp, which is a fifth above b: F#. The key of D has two sharps, F# and the fifth above F#, which is C#. From here, it is the same pattern as the flats, except that each new sharp is one whole tone higher than the second-to-last previous sharp. So the order of sharps is: F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#, B#, F-double-sharp.The tricks are different for flats and sharps: For flat keys, the name of the key is the second-to-last flat in the signature. Thus, for the key of Bb, Bb is the second-to-last flat, and the last one (from the list above) is Eb. Thus, Key=Bb, flats are Bb and Eb. For Cb, there must be seven flats (logical, if C is flat, everything must be flat!) and the flats are Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb, Fb.For sharps, the key name is one half-tone higher than the last sharp. So for the key of G, the last sharp must be F# (which is the first in the list). For the key of E, the last sharp is D#, so the sharps will be F#, C#, G#, D#, four sharps.So now you can figure out the sharps or flats in any key. Specifically for Db, the key signature will have Db as the second-to-last flat; from the list, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, making a total of five flats.
There are different rules. For major keys, the rule is this (by the way, # means sharp): C major scale- 0 sharps or flats G major scale- 1 sharp - F sharp D major scale- 2 sharps - F and C sharp A major scale- 3 sharps - F, C, G sharp E major scale- 4 sharps - F, C, G, D sharp B major scale- 5 sharps - F, C, G, D, A sharp F# major scale- 6 sharps - F, C, G, D, A, E sharp C# major scale - 7 sharps - F, C, G, D, A, E, B sharp. For major keys with flats: F major scale - 1 flat - B flat B flat major scale - 2 flats - B, E flat E flat major scale - 3 flats - B, E, A flat A flat major scale - 4 flats - B, E, A, D flat D flat major scale - 5 flats - B, E, A, D, G flat G flat major scale - 6 flats - B, E, A, D, G, C flat C flat major scale - 7 flats - B, E, A, D, G, C, F flat So as you might have noticed, in increasing order of sharps it is: F, C, G, D, A, E, B. And the increasing order of flats is B, E, A, D, G, C, F. If you notice the order of sharps is the opposite of the order of flats.
concert Bb on an alto saxophone is a G three keys on left hand for the Bb on an alto press the B key and use the right hand to press the key needed for F or F# but no fingers in between.
If referring to the sequence of sharps commencing with F#, then the pattern is as follows: F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#, B# However, if referring to the key of F, there are no sharps, but flats, and the order is reversed: B flat, E flat, A flat, D flat, G flat, C flat, F flat