There’s the scale of D, which is the basis of the key of D. You’re in the key of D, which has those two sharps: F sharp and C sharp.
![little do you know on piano little do you know on piano](https://freshsheetmusic.com/media/catalog/product/a/l/alex___sierra-little_do_you_know-musicnotes_thumbnail.png)
What’s the last sharp? C sharp, so you go up a half step to what? D. If you got two sharps, F sharp and C sharp. You know you’re in the key of G based on that one sharp being in the key, in the scale. In other words, if there’s only one sharp, you know it’s always F sharp. All you do is find the last sharp to the right in the key signature and go up a half step. 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. 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. 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. In sharps you can say it backwards or you can say fat cats go down alleys eating bologna, something like that. I said in flats you could remember it by saying bead, the word bead, and then something like go catch fish. If you remember that, you can always figure it out, can’t you? F-C-G-D-A-E-B. The order of the sharps are just backwards to the flats. It’s bead spelled backwards, isn’t it? Remember the order of the flats were B-E-A-D, G-C-F. Did you notice something else about it? F sharp, C sharp, G sharp, and D sharp. That’s a 5th higher than that, that’s a 5th higher than that, that’s a 5th higher than that: a perfect 5th. Notice the pattern there? Yeah, it’s up a 5th. 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. Now if you have one sharp, it’s F sharp, but if you have two sharps, it’s F sharp and C sharp always. You’re in the key of G and that sharp is always F sharp. The reason it has one sharp is because it’s based on the scale of G that goes like that. When we get to sharps there’s a key that has one sharp, and that is the key of G. First of all, the key of C is not a sharp key. Again, there’s seven major sharp keys, not counting minor keys. Where’s the second to the last one? It’s A flat, isn’t it? So A flat is the key. In other words, if you have four flats, those four flats are always B-E-A-D. We said that to find the key in flats you take the second to the last flat and that is the key.
![little do you know on piano little do you know on piano](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e9/52/b7/e952b75eccd09688983ac117a36c3246.png)
Those are the seven possible flats and the flat keys you can play in.
![little do you know on piano little do you know on piano](https://www.musicnotes.com/images/productimages/mtd/MN0138936.gif)
Looks like B but we’ve got to call it C flat. Then the last three are G flat, another up a 4th, and then C flat. If there’s four flats, B, E, A, D, that spells the word bead. Do you notice a pattern? Sure, it’s up a 4th. Four flats: B flat, E flat, A flat, and D flat. If three flats, there’s B flat, E flat, and A flat. If there’s two flats, it’s always B flat and E flat. Remember what they were? That’s right, if there’s one flat it’s always B flat. We’ll take up minor keys later, but talking about major keys, there were seven flat keys. Yesterday we took up the flat keys and we said there’s seven possible flat keys.
#Little do you know on piano series
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. Today we are going to cover all 7 sharp keys.Ĭlick on this link to watch this video on YouTube: