Key signature key signatures showing sharps or flats on both octaves for notes which fall within the staff. An accidental is an exception to the key signature, applying only to the measure and octave in which it appears. Although a key signature may be written using any combination of sharp and flat symbols, the most common series of thirteen homogeneous key signatures—ranging from six flats to six sharps, with each successive flat or sharp placed on the note a perfect fifth below or above, respectively, the previous one—is assumed in much of this article. A piece scored using a single diatonic key
Key (music) in support of each possible interpretation (such as the use of one note as the root of the initiating harmony and persistent use of another note as pitch of melodic resolution and root of the final harmony of each phrase)." Certain musical instruments play in a certain key, or have their music written in a certain key. Instruments that do not play in the key of C are known as transposing instruments. The most common kind of clarinet, for example, is said to play in the key of B. This means that a scale written in C major in sheet