Accidentals

So far, you've learned the seven note names, A through G.

Most western music, however, makes use of twelve different notes within an octave, not just seven.

In order to reference the other five notes, we use accidentals.  To get a better understanding of accidentals, it is helpful to look at a piano keyboard.

The piano keyboard contains white and black keys in a particular pattern.  In any given repetition of that pattern, there are twelve notes — seven white notes, which correspond to the seven letter names, and five black notes.

Here is a picture of the piano keyboard, with the note names written on the appropriate keys.

Pitches get higher as you move to the right; lower as you move to the left.