Key signature A minor as each accidental may be notated explicitly as required, or the piece may be modal or atonal. An example is Bartók's Piano Sonata, which has no fixed key and is highly chromatic. If not bound by common practice conventions, microtones can also be notated in a key signature; which microtonal symbols are used depends on the system. The common practice period conventions are so firmly established that some musical notation programs have been unable to show nonstandard key signatures until recently. The use of a one-flat signature developed in the Medieval period, but signatures with more than one
Stopped note On plucked string instruments with frets, such as the guitar, the pitch of a stopped note is determined by the left hand pressing (stopping) the string at one of the frets. Stopped note On string instruments, a stopped note is a note whose pitch has been altered from the pitch of the open string by the player's left hand pressing (stopping) the string against the fingerboard. On bowed string instruments, a stopped note is a played note that is fingered with the left hand, i.e. not an open string. This assists with tone production, the addition of vibrato, and sometimes