Episode 4: Defining the Signatures

Hello, and welcome back to this week's episode on Sulliadm's Music Theory Blog! This week's lesson is explaining the two signatures: Time and Key signatures.


First, we will start with the key signature. The Key Signature of music is what we use to tell  what sharps or flats should be used in the piece. For example, we can have 2 sharps in the key of D, or the key of F has 1 flat. The way to know what key we are in is by learning The Order of Sharps and The Order of Flats. The Order of Sharps are F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#, B#, and the easiest way to remember the keys is to go up a half step from the sharp. Using my example above, the key of D uses 2 sharps: F# and C#. Another common key to use is G, and it has one sharp: F#. In order to find the Order of flats, it is simply reversing that order. They are Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb, and Fb. The way to remember the keys here is to go back one letter in the line. So, using the example above, the key of F has only one flat, Bb. The key of Eb major has 3 flats: Bb, Eb and Ab.

Now, we will discuss time signatures. The Time Signature is the division of music that divides the number of beats by what note value gets the beat. As previously stated, every note can be subdivided. A quarter note can be split into 2 eighth notes, and similarly two quarter notes can be combined into a half note. Now the time signature tells you how many of what note can go within a measure. Commonly used time signatures are 4/4, 3/4. and 6/8. To simplify that, 4/4 time means there are four notes in a measure and the quarter note gets the beat. 6/8 means there are 6 notes in each measure while the eighth note gets the beat. There are unusual time signatures as well, such as 5/8, 7/4, and 2.5/4. Those are very rare to come by however it is just as simple to understand how to count.