The order of sharps is used when writing key signatures. First off, what are key signatures?
A key signature is a group of sharps or flats written after the clef but before the time signature.
A key signature tells a musician what sharps or flats to play in the music.
If you looked at a keyboard, the white notes are the natural notes and the black Keys are the sharps or flats.
For example, if the composer wanted the musician to play f-sharp every time it came up in the music,
they could write it as an accidental every single time,
or they could write it in the key signature instead and the musician would know that all of the F's would be F-sharp instead of F-natural.
Just like key signatures that use flats, key signatures that use sharps have a specific order
they're written in. For sharps, this is called the order of sharps.
The order is: F-sharp, C-sharp, G-sharp, D-sharp, A-sharp, E-sharp, B-sharp and it's written like this:
Be sure you write the key signature just like this.
Writing them on different lines or spaces or in a different order is incorrect and would confuse the musicians trying to read the music.
Now if you watch the order of flats video
you may have noticed that the order of sharps is the reverse of the order of flats, so
technically you only really need to learn one of the orders because the other order would be the reverse.
An easy way to remember the order of sharps is to make up a sentence where every word starts with a letter of the order of sharps like:
Fun Cellos Go Dancing After Every Ballet
Let me know in the comments below. How you remember the order of sharps?
Now, if you put the order of flats and the order of sharps together you would get the circle of fifths
which is a really cool music theory tool for musicians.
But that's probably a whole 'nother topic for another video.
Thanks for watching. Please. Let me know what you think in the comments below!
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