Natural
A natural cancels a sharp or flat, returning the note to its plain pitch. A natural before B means B, not B flat or B sharp.
Easily confused with
How to read it
The natural undoes a sharp or flat from earlier in the same measure, or one in the key signature. Where a key changes, naturals also cancel the old key signature. Some older writers call it the cancel.
Where the sign comes from
Two stories are told. Gehrkens (1914) derives it from the German letter H, which is what Germans call B natural. Stainer and Barrett’s dictionary (1898) finds the earliest known use of the sign in Bonaffino’s Madrigali Concertati of 1623.
Look-alikes
The Sharp has two full vertical strokes crossed by two bars; the natural’s strokes are offset, one reaching up and one down, and meet the bars to form a box.
Read next
- Next in Music symbolsDynamics (p, f)The italic letters in a score are dynamics, marks for how loud or soft the music is. p means piano, soft; f means forte, loud. Doubled they mean very soft (pp) or very loud (ff), and m makes them moderate: mp, mf.
- The same shape in North and Central American flagsFlag of CubaCuba’s flag has five horizontal stripes, three blue and two white, and a red triangle at the pole holding a white five-pointed star: the “flag of the lone star” named in Cuba’s Constitution. As the Havana historian Eusebio Leal told it, the blue stripes are the island’s three military departments, the white the purity of the cause, the red triangle the blood that would be shed, and the three colours liberty, equality and fraternity.
More music symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with lines.
Sources
- Music Notation and Terminology, Karl W. Gehrkens, 1914, A. S. Barnes Company (Project Gutenberg), Chapter III, §21, footnote 8
- Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom: Accidentals, Robert Hutchinson, section 1.4, University of Puget Sound, Section 1.4
- Primer of Facts about Music, M. G. Evans, 1909, Theodore Presser Co. (Internet Archive, University of Toronto), Q. 24
- Stainer and Barrett's Dictionary of Musical Terms, John Stainer and W. A. Barrett, new and revised edition, 1898, Novello (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library), Natural
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 26, 2026. How we research
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