Flat

Alternate uses: Flat (disambiguation)

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In music, flat means "lower in pitch." More specifically, in music notation, flat means "lower in pitch by a semitone," and has an associated symbol (lat), which looks like a lowercase "b"; the note A flat is shown in musical notation in Figure 1. Under equal temperament, C flat is the same as, or enharmonically equivalent to, B and F flat is the same as E.

Related Topics:
Music - Music notation - Pitch - Semitone - Note - Musical notation - Equal temperament - Enharmonic

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There also exist double-flats, which look like latlat and lower a note by two semitones. Less often one will encounter half, three-quarter, or otherwise altered flats.

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In musical tuning, flat can also mean "very slightly lower in pitch." If two strings are slightly out of tune, the lower-pitched one is said to be flat with respect to the other.

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See also: sharp.

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The Unicode character '♭' (U+266D) may display as a flat sign on some computers.

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