Sharp

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This article is about the musical notation. For alternate uses, see Sharp (disambiguation).

Image:C sharp.svg

In music, sharp means higher in pitch. More specifically, in musical notation, sharp means "higher in pitch by a semitone," and has an associated symbol (Image:Sharpsign.svg), which looks somewhat like a "#" (number sign). The Unicode character '♯' (U+266F) may display as a sharp sign on some computers, and '𝄪' (U+1D12A) may display as a double sharp.

The note C sharp is shown in musical notation in Figure 1. Under equal temperament, B sharp is the same as, or enharmonically equivalent to, C, and E sharp the same as F. There also exist double-sharps, which look like Image:Doublesharpsign.svg and raise a note by two semitones. Less often one will encounter half or three quarter, or otherwise modified, sharps.

In tuning, sharp can also mean "slightly higher in pitch". If two simultaneous notes are slightly out of tune, the higher-pitched one (assuming the lower one is properly pitched) is said to be sharp with respect to the other.

See also

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