Carla Menosky, age 12, of Pittsburgh, Pa., for her question:
WHAT ARE SHARPS AND FLATS IN MUSIC?
A high or low sound in music is usually defined as pitch. A musical sound, which we call a tone, is produced when something causes a series of vibrations that recur a certain number of times each second. Heavy wires vibrate slowly, 32.7 times a second, while thin wires vibrate at more than 4,000 times per second.
The same musical tone has different tone color when played on different instruments. We call this the quality of tone. Loud and soft tones determine the intensity, while . harmony is produced when a tone has other tones to support and accompany it. A series of tones makes up a tune, which we can also call a melody.
A scale is a series of musical tones which are arranged according to rising or falling pitch. A piano keyboard, for example, has a series of white and black keys. The distance from one key to the next, whether from black or white, is always a half step. The half step above any white key is called its sharp and the half step below any white key is called its flat.
Actually composers use many different kinds of scales. Most are based on the octave, the interval between two tones of the same name. The word octave comes from the Latin word for eight. From middle C on the piano to the next C you have eight tones: do, re, mi. fa, sol, la, ti and do. The keys, in order, are C, D, E, F, G, A, B and C again.
A half step above the C is the C sharp, and a half¬step below the D is the same note on the piano, but it is now called a D flat. On a stringed instrument, a musician would be able to play these as two separate tones, where that would be impossible on the piano.
An octave is divided into 12 equal parts, each of which is a half step using sharps and flats. The 12 half steps make up the chromatic scale.
When you run a scale using only the white keys on your piano, you are using the seven tones of the diatonic scale. Until about 200 years ago, most Western music was based on this diatonic scale which used this pattern of eliminating sharps and flats: two whole steps, one half step, three whole steps and another half step.
Music is written and printed in a picture language called notation. Five parallel lines are called a staff. A treble clef sign, which looks something like the letter S, is printed on the left of a staff when it lists notes above middle C. A bass clef, which looks a bit like a backward C, is used to the left of a staff for notes below middle C.
Sharps and flats are written on music in front of certain notes. The marks, called accidentals, include the number sign for the sharp and something like a small lower case B for the flat.