Bass Lesson 08 - Sharps, Flats and Keys

Knowing music keys and the notes that they contain can greatly improve your ability to improvise. This article covers keys, sharps, flats, and naturals and what they all do! Have fun, and make sure to practice your finger exercises as well!

The first thing you need to know is what sharps, flats, and naturals are. First, let’s look at B. If you have a B note and you make it flat, it becomes Bb or B flat. Bb is one semi tone lower in tone than the B. A B note can be played on the A string on the 2nd fret. On the other hand, Bb is played one fret lower on the 1st string. If we make the B sharp (B#), then it becomes one semi tone higher than the B and is played on the 3rd fret of the A string. B# is the same tone as C. The third pitch-changing symbol is the natural symbol. The natural symbol returns a note to its original value with no sharps or flats. It looks like a box with one arm and a leg.

This chart shows all of the possible combinations of sharps and flats. If a note does not have a sharp or flat symbol next to it, it is natural. The notes on top of each other are the same pitch but can be written different ways. This means that there is no tone between B and C, and there is also no tone between E and F. As you can see, making F sharp and G flat will produce the same tone. Now that you understand sharps and flats, you can move on to keys.

In the lesson on major scales, we learned that the Cmaj scale does not have any sharps or flats, meaning that all of the notes in the Cmaj scale are natural. A key is a system of notes that contains certain notes that are either sharp or flat; each key has different notes that are sharp or flat. One of the easiest way for you to learn keys is to learn the circle of fifths and how to use it.

A fifth is an interval between the root note of a major scale and the 5 note of the major scale or 8 semi tones. If you are playing the Cmaj scale, the 5th note is a G. This explains the order of letters in the circle. Starting with C, the fifth is G. The fifth of G is D and so on. After 12 notes, you are back at C. Now, you need to know how this applies to keys. Inside the circle, you see numbers that range from 0 to 6. The right side of the circle is sharps and the left side is flat keys. The number represents the amount of sharp or flat notes in that key. As discussed previously, Cmaj has no flats or sharps, which is why there is a zero underneath it. The scale of Gmaj (notes: G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G) has only one sharp in it, thus explaining the numerical one next to it. The Bb scale has two flats, Bb and Eb. In layman’s terms, whatever number is next to the letter represents how many sharps (right half) or flats (left side) are in that respective key. Below there is an example of what key signatures look like. Notice how one of the sharps is on the line of G. That means that every G that falls on this line will be played a semi tone up, or G#. Likewise, any note that falls on the same line of a flat will be played one semi tone down.

Emaj