Flat (music)

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In music, flat means "lower in pitch." More specifically, in music notation, flat means "lower in pitch by a semitone (half step)," and has an associated symbol which looks somewhat like a lowercase "b". The Unicode character '' (U+266D) is the flat sign.

Under twelve tone equal temperament, C flat for instance is the same as, or enharmonically equivalent to, B natural, and G flat is the same as F sharp. Note that in any other tuning system, such enharmonic equivalences in general do not exist.

Double flats also exist, which look like and lower a note by two semitones, or a whole step. Less often (in for instance microtonal music notation) one will encounter half, or three-quarter, or otherwise altered flats. The Unicode character '𝄫' (U+1D12B) represents the double flat sign.

Although very uncommon and only used in modern classical music, a triple flat can sometimes be found. It lowers a note three semitones.

The note A flat is shown in musical notation in Figure 1, together with A double flat.

In tuning, flat can also mean "slightly lower in pitch". If two simultaneous notes are slightly out of tune, the lower-pitched one (assuming the higher one is properly pitched) is said to be flat with respect to the other.

An easy way to remember the order of the flats (B,E,A,D,G,C,F) is by taking the first letter of each word in the following sentence. Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father. You can also use the same sentence backwords for the order of sharps.

Flat (music)

See also