Accidental (music) Accidental (music) In music, an accidental is a note of a pitch (or pitch class) that is not a member of the scale or mode indicated by the most recently applied key signature. In musical notation, the sharp (), flat (), and natural () symbols, among others, mark such notes—and those symbols are also called accidentals. In the measure (bar) where it appears, an accidental sign raises or lowers the immediately following note (and any repetition of it in the bar) from its normal pitch, overriding sharps or flats in the key signature. A note is usually raised or lowered
Key signature signature that appears at the end of a line immediately before a change is usually preceded by an additional barline; the line at the very end of the staff is omitted in this case. If both naturals and a new key signature appear at a key signature change, there are also more recently variations about where a barline will be placed (in the case where the change occurs between bars). For example, in some scores by Debussy, in this situation the barline is placed after the naturals but before the new key signature. Hitherto, it would have been more usual