Reading Key Signatures by Counting Steps

Video Transcript

Here, the key is now E flat, see how the flat is in this space, and remember, all cows eat, E, E flat, is right here. That means that the key is now E flat. It doesn't matter that this flat is back here, it's the second to last one that matters. Here are the order of flats. We got B flat, E flat, A flat, D flat, G flat, and these are how they would appear on the chart, if you had a key with six flats. Six flats would indicate that we had the key of G flat. Let's look at sharps. The sharps, you can tell just by the first one, wherever your first sharp is, the furthest sharp out. That sharp, say this is F sharp, one half step above that is your key. So one step above, one half-step above F sharp is G. So one sharp we have G major. Here we have C sharp is the furthest one out. One half step above C sharp is D major. This one is, "all cows eat grass, " G sharp, A major is the next half-step up. And this is the order of sharps here. And E sharp would be - from there would be F sharp major, 'cause remember, they're already a half-step apart. So use these tricks to read key signatures when you see them at the beginning of a piece so you can figure out the melody.

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