Okuzeka
Music vocabulary · Music Theory and Harmony

Accidental

Meaning in music, with examples

nounCommon term

In music, accidental means: A notation sign, such as a sharp, flat, or natural, that alters or restores the pitch assigned to a note.

In Turkish: arıza işareti

How it is used

Used in notation and theory when a note must be sharp, flat, or natural for a bar or passage. Common with terms like key signature, bar, and pitch.

Example sentences

  1. The violinist missed the accidental in bar 12, so the passage sounded unexpectedly bright during rehearsal.

    Here accidental means the written sign that changes one note from the expected pitch, and missing it altered the harmony.

  2. Please circle every accidental before sight-reading, because this score changes pitch details almost every bar.

    In this example, accidental refers to notation marks that must be noticed in advance to play the correct pitches.

Common collocations

  • add an accidental
  • courtesy accidental
  • double accidental
  • accidental sign
  • noteA single musical sound with a particular pitch and length, or the written symbol that shows it. In English, notes are named with the letters A to G.
  • pitchHow high or low a sound is. Pitch depends on the frequency of the sound wave: the faster the vibration, the higher the pitch.

More terms: Music Theory and Harmony

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: