Every person who is more or less familiar with musical notation knows that when building some types of scales and writing musical works, the signs of alteration are quite often used. The main ones are sharp and flat. In addition, the composers also have at their disposal a bacar sign, which cancels the increase or decrease in the sound of notes. In this case, we will focus on sharps.
What is a sharp?
As for the definition itself, the meaning of the term “sharp” comes from the French word diese, the Greek diesi, which can be interpreted as “softening”. This sign of alteration began to be actively used in musical notation, starting from about the 15th century, as well as the other two main characters (flat and bacar).
Today, these signs are basic. Less common are signs such as double-sharp and double-flat. To the backer (canceling all changes in the sound of notes) the prefix “take” is not applied today.
What is a sharp in terms of modern music theory? This is a sign indicating an increase in the sound of a note by a semitone standing on the stave after it. Moreover, the increase in notes by a half tone occurs while maintaining the name of the note itself. The use of the sharp sign can be twofold. He can stand in the key. Then all the notes to which he points out, in the whole work or gamut will be increased by half a tone. If the sharp is absent with the key, it is sometimes put directly in time to give harmony a unique sound. But only in this case the action of the sign is limited to one measure. In addition, the cancellation of the increase in notes can be set with the help of a backer in the same measure, already after (if necessary).
Alteration Character Compatibility
As for the compatibility of signs, so to speak, the sharp and the baker, the flat and the baker can be used in the same harmonic sequence. But sharp and flat - never. This is due precisely to the musical rules and canons.
The fact is that at the moment there is a clear distribution between the types of scales. For all of them, special sequences of characters with a key are used, indicating the type or name of the gamma. In other words, besides pure notes, these are allowed changes in sound. So it becomes clear that if the main tonality or gamma, on the basis of which a musical work is built, has only sharp characters in the key, there can be no talk of any flats.
Here sometimes paradoxes arise. Many novice thrashers tend to argue that the thrash-metal style of music is based on the mandatory combination of a fifth with tonic E and B flat or imply a transition in the form of a reduced fifth. This is an absolute misconception. The fact is that if initially we have the key in E minor with F-sharp in key, the B flat cannot be present here in any way.
In fact, the second fifth is not built on B flat, but on a sharp. Hence the change in the transition interval. This is not a reduced quint, but an enlarged quart. So an understanding of what a sharp is can also be interpreted as a kind of permission to enhance the sound of strictly defined notes or steps of a certain scale.
There is one more nuance here. The fact is that the same A sharp and B flat sound the same on all instruments. What is a sharp in this case? This is an increase in a certain note by half a tone (in this case, A), which coincides with a decrease in the neighboring note (next on the stave) by the same half tone (in this example, C). So these things should not be confused.
Key Signs and Gamma Definition
Now a few words about the key signs and principles of constructing or defining certain types of scales. As mentioned above, a sharp (or several) in the key implies an increase in the note by a half tone (or several notes) in the entire gamut or musical composition. What for sharps, what for flats there is a certain order in which they follow in the key one after another.
For sharp keys, this sequence looks like the following representation: fa / do / sol / re / la / mi / si. The sequence for flats is in reverse order. You can immediately tell by the sign or signs in the key what tonality it is. For major, the tonic is calculated by moving up a semitone up from the last key sharp, which is the far right. Minor tonality can be determined by building a minor third down from the major tonic or moving in the sequence of sharps to the sign located to the left of the previous one.
To make it clearer, we take as an example a key with three key signs: F-sharp, C-sharp and G-sharp. The last character in this case is G sharp. A half tone up give us a note a la. This is the tonic. That is, it is gamma in A Major. A small third down is a f-sharp. Again, jumping over one sharp back, we see exactly the f-sharp. As you can see, everything is simple.
Total
Probably now it’s clear what a sharp sign is. Raising a note by a half tone is its main purpose. The only thing I want to pay attention to is: never confuse the use of sharps and flats in one key or composition.