Piano Theory Blog #3: Nov. 8th, 2019

Today, I learned about accidentals. Even though I know what accidentals are (ex. flats, sharps, naturals) from playing other instruments, the lesson found on the website that I mentioned in the last blog went into a lot more depth on accidentals, such as double sharps, double flats, and enharmonic equivalent notes. For double flats and double sharps, instead of raising or lowering the note by half a step, such as a regular flat/sharp, double flats and double sharps raise and lower the note by a whole step. On sheet music, the double sharp is represented by an x and a double flat is represented by a bb. Enharmonic equivalent notes are notes that are played by pressing the same key on the piano but are called differently. For example, the black key between C and D is a half step above C, but also a half step below D. This means that the same key can be called both C# or Db. When you add double flats and double sharps, it means that the black key between C and D can be called Bx, but not a note with a bb in it, since the key that is a whole tone away from that note cannot be named by a note without an accidental. Finally, a natural cancels out any accidental and puts it back into what it was before it was affected by it.

The website used for this week's blog: https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/20

Possible Accidentals

Enharmonic Equivalents