ABRSM Grade 5 Theory - Key Signatures
- amylinington
- Mar 15, 2023
- 2 min read
In your grade 5 theory exam, many of the questions will either be directly about key signatures or rely upon your understanding of them. Working them out accurately under pressure is sometimes a bit hit and miss so I advise my students to spend a few minutes at the beginning of the exam to write out a key signature chart.
This post will guide you through the steps of doing so and hopefully help you prepare for your grade 5 theory exam.
What Is A Key Signature?
In Western musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp (♯), flat (♭)symbols situated on the stave at the beginning of a piece or section of music.
The initial key signature is placed immediately after the clef at the beginning of the first line. The Time signature would come after the key signature.
If the piece contains a section in a different key, the new key signature is placed at the beginning of that section.
Each major and minor key has its own key signature, showing up to seven flats or seven sharps, that indicates the notes used in its scale. I am going to show you the key signature to each scale and an easy way of working them out.
Key Signature Chart
The chart above shows the key signatures for all major and minor scales.
There are several ways to work out key signatures on the go but for the purpose of theory exams and accuracy, I suggest learning to write out the chart above before any workings out. It’s much easier than you think and you can do it in about 3 minutes with practice.
All you need to remember is that
when working out both flats and sharps, C major and a minor have no key signature and you work up from there.
With sharps you work in 5s
With flats you work in 4s
Sharps
The rule of 5s
Start at C which has no key signature.
Count up a perfect 5th and you come to G which has one sharp.
Count up a perfect 5th and you come to D which has 2 sharps
Count up a perfect 5th and you come to A which has 3 sharps
Keep going until you get to C Sharp major…
C…G…D…A…E...B…F♯…C♯
The Order Of Sharps
This also follows a rule of 5s
The first sharp is F♯
Count up 5 and you come to C♯
Count up 5 and you come to G♯
Keep going….
F♯…C♯…G♯…D♯…A♯…E♯…B♯
Father Christmas Goes Dancing And Eats Brownies.
Relative Minors
To work out the relative minor you can either count 3 semitones down from the major key or start at A and count up 5!
A…E…B…F♯…C♯…G♯…D♯…A♯
Flats
To work out the flats for your chart you do the exact same thing but counting a perfect 4th instead of a 5th.
So
C…F…B♭…E♭…A♭…D♭…G♭…C♭
Same with the order of the Flats…
B♭…E♭…A♭…D♭…G♭…C♭…A♭
BEAD - Good Chain Always
Same with the Relative Minors
A+4 and so on
A…D…G…C…F
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