How many sharps or flats are in the d-flat concert scale and what are they?

Answer 1

Sharps and flats follow a pattern of fifths, so it is not difficult to construct a list of all the sharps and/or all the flats. Additionally, there are simple tricks to determine which sharps or flats are in a key signature.

Flat keys are called flat because they have flats in the key signature, while sharp keys have sharps, so you won't find any sharps in D-flat. But how many? Flats and sharps have their own patterns and tricks.

First, flats:

The key of C has no sharps or flats. The key of F, which is one fifth below C, has one flat, which is Bb. The key of Bb has two flats, Bb and Eb. The key of Eb has three flats, Bb, Eb, and Ab. The key of Ab has four flats, Bb, Eb, Ab, and Db. From here on out, the flats continue in this pattern: the next flat is one whole tone lower than the second-to-last previous flat. So the order of flats is: Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb, Fb, B-double-flat, etc.

Sharps proceed in the same way, except that you ascend a fifth each time:

C has no sharps or flats. Its leading tone is b. The key of G has one sharp, which is a fifth above b: F#. The key of D has two sharps, F# and the fifth above F#, which is C#. From here, it is the same pattern as the flats, except that each new sharp is one whole tone higher than the second-to-last previous sharp. So the order of sharps is: F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#, B#, F-double-sharp.

The tricks are different for flats and sharps: For flat keys, the name of the key is the second-to-last flat in the signature. Thus, for the key of Bb, Bb is the second-to-last flat, and the last one (from the list above) is Eb. Thus, Key=Bb, flats are Bb and Eb. For Cb, there must be seven flats (logical, if C is flat, everything must be flat!) and the flats are Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb, Fb.

For sharps, the key name is one half-tone higher than the last sharp. So for the key of G, the last sharp must be F# (which is the first in the list). For the key of E, the last sharp is D#, so the sharps will be F#, C#, G#, D#, four sharps.

So now you can figure out the sharps or flats in any key. Specifically for Db, the key signature will have Db as the second-to-last flat; from the list, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, making a total of five flats.