Last week, I covered reading the natural notes on a staff for ukulele, going over the notes in first position (and a few more moving up the neck on the A string). Today we are going to cover the notes in between – the sharps and flats.
When you look at a piano, the sharps and flats are easy to spot because they’re an entirely different type of key:
Each black key has two names. It’s both the sharp ( ♯ ) of the note to the left and the flat (♭) of the note to the right.
On a ukulele, it’s a bit less obvious which notes are which because all of the frets look the same (except for the dots that help you find frets 5, 7, 10, etc.). Here’s how the natural notes and the sharps and flats between them appear in first position on a low G uke:
You probably noticed that some notes have no sharp or flat between them. The note pairs B-C and E-F are directly next to each other, creating the distinct groupings of two and three black notes on a piano. Again, though, there’s no easy way to see the difference between a natural note and a sharp/flat on a ukulele, so spotting these pairs of adjacent natural notes isn’t as simple. It’s just one of those things you have to memorize.
Okay, we know where to find these in-between notes, but how and when do we use them? Let’s talk about the two main ways they appear in music: key signatures and accidentals.
Key Signatures
At the beginning of a piece of music, sharps and flats often appear in the key signature, the space between the clef symbol and the time signature:
The example above has one flat on the line of the staff for the B note. This is the key signature for the key of F, which has one flat note – B-flat. Every time a B note appears in a song in the key of F (on this line AND when it appears above and below the staff in other octaves), you have to play a B-flat or the music won’t sound right.
This might seem difficult and confusing at first. Why not just write the sharps and flats into the music so you don’t accidentally miss one? While that might seem to make sense for a key like F with only one flat, it gets complicated quickly. Take a look at this diagram:
The circle of fifths is an incredibly useful diagram for musicians, but don’t worry about doing much with it right now. All I want you to notice is how many sharps and flats there are in the keys on the lower half of the diagram. If you tried to write all of the sharps into a piece of music in the key of B, for example, you’d have a mess. Over half of the notes would have a sharp, and the music would be difficult to read.
To solve this problem (and several others that we can talk about another time), music uses key signatures, and musicians learn to play the sharps and flats of a particular key automatically, rather than needing to see the sharp/flat written next to each note where it is needed.
Accidentals
Sometimes, however, a sharp or flat does appear in a piece of music because a note you need to play falls outside of the key of the piece. Check out this measure from “Greensleeves,” which is in the key of F:
The key of F has only one non-natural note (B-flat), so to play that C-sharp, you need to include the sharp in the music.
The next note after the C-sharp has a symbol we haven’t talked about yet – the natural symbol (♮). The note is a B, and in the key of F, you would automatically play a B-flat. However, since this note needs to be a plain-old B, the natural symbol tells you to ignore the key signature and play the note without the flat.
You could also see a natural symbol to cancel out a sharp or flat from earlier in the same measure. If there are multiple C-sharps in a measure, as is the case in the above example, you only have to include the sharp symbol once. Any other C notes in the measure are understood to be C-sharps unless they are canceled out by a natural symbol. So that final C in the measure in the example is also played as a C-sharp even though it isn’t marked as such.
Notes from outside the native key of a piece are used for special inflection or a specific feel. Some types of music use them more than others. They’re relatively rare in the children’s and folk music I post here, but you see them all the time in classical pieces.
When a note falls outside of the key signature and requires a special symbol in the music, it’s called an accidental.
How much of this do I really need to know?
Okay, deep breath. There was a LOT of information in this article, and if it’s all brand new to you, it probably seems a bit overwhelming. I have some good news for you, though.
First, all of the music I post includes a TAB alongside the standard notation, so if you’re ever in doubt about which fret to play, you’ll find the answer directly below the staff in the TAB.
Second, the majority of the music on this site is in one of four keys: C (no sharps/flats), G (one sharp), D (two sharps), and F (one flat). In fact, most music in general falls into the key signatures on the top half of the circle of fifths. You don’t often find yourself playing in G flat (6 flats) regardless of your skill level.
Third, I’ve got another cheat sheet for you. This one shows the notes in first position in each of those most common keys for uke. With only one or two sharps/flats to worry about, the patterns will be almost identical, and you can learn the slight shift you need to keep in mind when playing in each key.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be covering more basic music theory topics like reading rhythm and the major scale. Check back each week for a new article. Happy picking!
Click the download button below if the cheat sheet doesn’t appear as an embed.
Sharps and Flats Cheat Sheet Download
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