Flats

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman. Today we are learning about flats. You can think of flats as the opposite of sharps, which we learned about in a previous lesson. Remember that a sharp raises a note one half step. A flat on the other hand lowers a note by one half step. You can remember it this way: The sharp symbol looks really pokey and sharp. I mean, would you want to touch one of those? And when you get poked with something sharp, you jump up. At least, I do. When you get a flat tire though, your car sinks down. So that's just a little trick to remember. Sharps go up, flats go down. Let's come to the piano to get some more practice with flats. As I said, a flat can lower any note by one half step. For example, let's take this A here. Here's an A, and here is A-flat. We just move that down a half step. Or if I have an E here, can you show me where E-flat would be? It would be right here. If I have an F, where would F-flat be? Since there's no black key immediately to the left, F-flat actually moves right here to E. So F-flat equals E. Now you try a few. Here's a D. Can you point to D-flat? If you're pointing here, you're correct. Here is a G. Can you point to a G-flat? If you're pointing here, you're correct. And here's a C. Can you point to a C-flat? If you're pointing here, you're correct. This is B, or you could also call it C-flat. Now let's try a few where you have to find it without me showing you the original note. Can you point to an E-flat? If you're pointing here, you're correct. Now, can you point to a D-flat? If you're pointing here, you're correct. Now, can you point to an A-flat? If you're pointing here, you're correct. Can you point to a B-flat? If you're pointing here, you're correct. Here's a B, we go down a half step to B-flat. Now, you might have noticed by now that, hey wait a minute, some of these notes like B-flat have another possible name. When we were learning about sharps, we were saying that that same black key was called A-sharp, and you're absolutely right. Any black key actually has two possible names. If we start it on an A and moved up a half step, we'd call that note A-sharp, but if we start on a B and move down a half step, we could call it B-flat. Two names for the same note. That's called an enharmonic name. It means two different names for the same key. Let's try finding some other enharmonics. I'll give you a sharp name, and you try and tell me the flat name. Here's a C-sharp. Can you tell me it's flat name? If you said D-flat, you're correct. C-sharp equals D-flat. They're enharmonic. Here's an F-sharp. Can you tell me it's flat name? If you said G-flat, you're correct. Now, I'll give you a flat name, and you tell me the sharp name. Here's an E-flat. Can you tell me the sharp name? If you said D-sharp, you're correct. Now, let's go for a little hunt for flats and sharps in actual music. I have some kind of advanced music here. Can you point to any flats that you see? If you're pointing here, here, here, here, or here, you're correct. Those are the flats. Now where do you see any sharps? Can you find them? If you're pointing here or down here, you found the sharps. Good, now let's notice a few things. You've got this flat over here, which is part of the key signature. A key signature comes right after the clef, and it is a flat that automatically makes any flats on that line, which happens to be the B line of treble clef, so it means any B on that whole line automatically is flat. Now, if you want additional sharps or flats, which we call accidentals, then they appear in the music, and you'll notice the sharp or flat always comes right before the note in question on the same line or space as the note. So notice this line passes right through the same line as the note that it alters or affects. This flat also is on the same space as the note head that it affects, and same here. Now the funny thing is, this note happens to be an E-flat. We draw the flat in front of the note, but when we write the note, we say E and then we put the flat sign. So for writing it as a letter, E-flat goes this way, but when we're drawing it on the staff the flat goes in front. E-flat. Now, let's practice drawing a couple of sharps and flats. So, grab yourself a blank piece of paper and a pencil. Draw a staff line, and then let's place a flat on this line. All you do is draw a straight line down, then you're going to add half of a heart shape, and if you want the flat on the line, make sure the line cuts right through the middle of your half heart. Alright. Let's try drawing a couple of these. We've got a flat. Now for a sharp, you're going to draw two lines straight down, and then kind of like a tic tac toe, and again, make the line cut right through the middle of your sharp if you want the sharp on the line. Two lines straight down, and then two lines over, and its traditional in music to make those cross lines a little bit slanted up like that. So, press pause and practice drawing a couple of sharps and flats, then press play when you're ready to go on. You are now a certified expert on flats. For even more practice with flats, you can use the printable materials for this unit available on our website. Thanks for watching, ...