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 signature musical "Seussical" by Flaherty and Ahrens also has several songs written in these extreme keys. Key signatures can be further extended through double sharps and double flats (for example, a piece in the key of G major can be expressed with a double sharp on F and six sharps on the other six pitches). As with the seven-sharp and seven-flat examples, it is rarely necessary to express music in such keys when simpler enharmonic examples can instead be used (in the case of G, the same passage could be expressed in A with only four flats). The key signature may