Key Signatures (midterm review)

Music key signatures tell you what sharps or flats to play in a key. Music key signatures can have only sharps or only flats, not both.

It's not too difficult to memorize key signatures. The way I memorized them was by using mnemonic devices.

Order of Sharps and Flats

You can memorize the order of sharps with this saying:

Fat Cats Go Downtown And Eat Bagels

The first letter of each word stands for a sharp.

To memorize the order of the flats you can make up a saying if you want. What I do is remember that the first 4 spell a word: BEAD. After that I remember that the ones that follow are GCF or "Greatest Common Factor."

Order of the Keys
(Circle of 5ths)

You know that the key of C has no sharps or flats. From this key you can figure out the order of the rest. You can memorize the order of the sharps by counting up 5 notes from the last one. For example, the key with one sharp is G. You can find it by saying C-D-E-F-G. The next one is is D - 5 notes up from G.

To memorize the key signatures with flats in them, you can count up 4 notes. There is also another way: Whatever the last flat is, it's the next key in the order. The key of F has only one flat - Bb. The key with 2 flats is Bb. Bb has 2 flats, Bb and Eb and so the next key in the order is Eb.

Where To Put Them on the Staff

For the sharps in the treble clef, you start on the top line of the staff. Follow the pattern of up - down - up - down. The only exception is A. It should look like this: Bass clef sharps start on F and then follow the same pattern of up - down - up - down.

The flats have the opposite pattern. They start on B and go down - up - down - up. It looks like this.

Unfortunately, I've been having difficulty finding images of the sharps and flats in alto clef (or viola clef). As soon as I do, I will add them here.