Sharp Keys And The Order Of The Sharps

Today we are going to cover all 7 sharp keys.

Click on this link to watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ibIMAgH-X0

Good morning. This is Duane. We’ve been doing a series called “Good Stuff You Really Ought to Know About Music.” One of the things you really ought to know about music are the sharp keys. Yesterday we took up the flat keys and we said there’s seven possible flat keys. I’m talking about major keys now. We’ll take up minor keys later, but talking about major keys, there were seven flat keys. We also learned the order of the flats. Remember what they were? That’s right, if there’s one flat it’s always B flat. If there’s two flats, it’s always B flat and E flat. If three flats, there’s B flat, E flat, and A flat. Four flats: B flat, E flat, A flat, and D flat. Do you notice a pattern? Sure, it’s up a 4th. Each one is up a 4th, isn’t it?

If there’s four flats, B, E, A, D, that spells the word bead. Then the last three are G flat, another up a 4th, and then C flat. Looks like B but we’ve got to call it C flat. Then F flat. Those are the seven possible flats and the flat keys you can play in. We said that to find the key in flats you take the second to the last flat and that is the key. In other words, if you have four flats, those four flats are always B-E-A-D. Where’s the second to the last one? It’s A flat, isn’t it? So A flat is the key.

Today we want to take up the sharp keys. Again, there’s seven major sharp keys, not counting minor keys. We’ll do that later. There’s seven sharp keys. First of all, the key of C is not a sharp key. It just has no sharps or flats. When we get to sharps there’s a key that has one sharp, and that is the key of G. The reason it has one sharp is because it’s based on the scale of G that goes like that. If you have one sharp, just memorize it. You’re in the key of G and that sharp is always F sharp.

Now if you have one sharp, it’s F sharp, but if you have two sharps, it’s F sharp and C sharp always. If you have three sharps, F sharp, C sharp, and G sharp; if you have four sharps, F sharp, C sharp, G sharp, and D sharp. Notice the pattern there? Yeah, it’s up a 5th. That’s a 5th higher than that, that’s a 5th higher than that, that’s a 5th higher than that: a perfect 5th. Did you notice something else about it? F sharp, C sharp, G sharp, and D sharp. It’s bead spelled backwards, isn’t it? Remember the order of the flats were B-E-A-D, G-C-F. The order of the sharps are just backwards to the flats. If you remember that, you can always figure it out, can’t you? F-C-G-D-A-E-B.

I said in flats you could remember it by saying bead, the word bead, and then something like go catch fish. In sharps you can say it backwards or you can say fat cats go down alleys eating bologna, something like that. Because the order of the sharps is always the same: F sharp, C sharp, G sharp, D sharp, A sharp, E sharp, and B sharp. You’re not going to use those last keys hardly at all, but get familiar with at least the ones that have two or three or four sharps, because you run into that all the time.

Now how do you tell the key you’re in if you have sharps in the key signature? It’s super easy, it’s super easy. All you do is find the last sharp to the right in the key signature and go up a half step. In other words, if there’s only one sharp, you know it’s always F sharp. What’s a half step above F sharp? G. You know you’re in the key of G based on that one sharp being in the key, in the scale. If you got two sharps, F sharp and C sharp. What’s the last sharp? C sharp, so you go up a half step to what? D. You’re in the key of D, which has those two sharps: F sharp and C sharp. There’s the scale of D, which is the basis of the key of D. Again, you take the last sharp to the right and go up a half a step.

If you have three sharps, F, C, G sharp, go up a half step and you’re in the key of A. If you have four sharps, F, C, G, D, go up a half step and you’re in the key of E. If you have five sharps, F sharp, C sharp, G sharp, D sharp, and A sharp, then you’re in the key of B. You can see if you play the key of B with those five sharps that’s the B scale. Songs can be written in the key of B based on those five sharps. Key of B is really pretty easy because you’re using all the sharps. There’s none that you leave out. You’re losing all the black keys. It’s exactly like the key of D flat, by the way. You’re using all the flats and nothing else.

You want to learn that order of the sharps, which is F-C-G-D-A-E-B. Fat cats go down alleys eating bologna, or any others saying any other memory device you want to use to remember that. Then you secondly want to learn how to tell what key you’re in if you have sharps in the key signature. We simply take the last sharp to the right and go up half a step. That’s really all you need to know. We’ve covered the flat keys and the sharp keys. Tomorrow we’ll go on to the relative minor keys and determine how we find the key there. If you enjoy these little videos, come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for our whole series. I hope to see you there. Bye bye for now.

Click on this link to watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ibIMAgH-X0

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