Father Charles goes down and ends battle - anyone know this and can help please?

[Clutterfreeintraining]

I've been having music lessons for the last couple of months, learning a new instrument. I learnt to play the piano as a child and reached grade 5 practical and grade 4 theory but had never heard of this formula to work out key signatures.

My music teacher has a completely different teaching method to my original piano teacher and is very keen to teach me this way of working out key signatures but I just can't get it to sink into my head. He explains it and I understand but by the next lesson it's gone, despite being written down. I feel so stupid for not getting it and it's making me feel anxious before my lesson (feeling anxious now ahead of tomorrow's lesson).

Does anyone know of a way to make it sink in or something online where I can practice and help it stick in my memory?

DS did his grade 5 theory a couple of years ago. He learned it using the circle of fifths, which is a visual representation.

So from any given key: going up an interval of a fifth adds a sharp (or takes away a flat) to the key signature.

It works backwards for flats! My dds teacher made her draw out her own poster which helped it stick. Good luck, you'll get there.

If it has an f sharp just go up one note - g major key. F and C sharps = D major. F, C, G =A major etc. I tend to not go too far down the scarey key signatures these days...

For flats I think go down 4 so Bb = fmaj, Eb =Bb major

Ironoaks- thanks. My piano-teacher-friend was telling me about that the other day but I didn't fully understand that either I need to crack Father Charles!!

Stronger - teacher wants me to work out which flats or sharps are in a key signature rather than the other way around.

Horsey - I can see that would work but I wouldn't know what to put on it in the first place .

How do you know if a key signature has flats or sharps? So teacher asks me what's key signature of d major and wants me to work it out. And then when it's something like Bb major?! Is that even possible? Urgh, it makes my poor little brain hurt .

FCGDAEB is the order of the sharps given at the start of the music. If you want to know the major key, just go up a semitone from the last sharp in the key signature. So if there's one sharp in the key signature, it's an F# (Father), they major key is G (one semitone up from the sharp). If there's two sharps, they are F# and C# (Father Charles), and the major key is D (one semitone up from C).

Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father is the order of the flats. So one flat written at the start of the music is a Bb, if there are two then they are a Bb and Eb. The major key is the second to last flat so if there is a Bb and Eb in the key signature, then the major key is Bb. You do have to remember that F is the major key with one flat (Bb) as there isn't one before it (or remember that Father is the last word in the mnemonic, aka F).

I used both mnemonics so I quickly knew what the sharps or flats were in a piece of music before playing on the piano. Knowing the key a piece of music is in is important if you need to transpose it (which I'm sure I did in Grade 5 theory)

To know the key signature of D major, you basically need to know your scales, there's no substitute for that. But all the major key signatures which have flats in them are all called that (e.g. Eb), the exception being the major key of F, which has one flat (Bb) and the key of C major which has no flats or sharps. Everything else will have sharps in the key signature.

So, using your example, D major has sharps, go down one semitone from D on the piano, it takes you to C#. Say the mnemonic.... Father Charles... so the key signature for D major has 2 sharps, F# and C#

What's the key signature of the major key of Ab? Say the mnemonic for flats... Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father. The major key is the letter of the penultimate flat so you'll have 4 flats is the key of Ab.... Bb, Eb, Ab and Db.

Thank you purplecrazy. Teacher thinks that just knowing 'father Charles...' means you don't have to memorise the scales (which was how my piano teacher taught me to learn them but too long ago for me to still remember anything more than the very basics).

So if a key signature doesn't have # or b in its name, how do you know if it has # or b?

All the flat ones have flat in their name except F major, you need to just learn that one.

Ooh, great, that helps - thank you!! I feel so stupid not being able to figure this out.

So if a key signature doesn't have # or b in its name, how do you know if it has # or b?

You can either just learn them all by rote, which is more practical for the more common ones, or work it out knowing the pattern of tones and semitones in a major/minor scale.

I found it easier to visualise on the piano than my other instrument but you could also visualise it on the stave.