Natural sign

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Figure 1. A natural sign.

In musical notation, a natural sign ( $\natural$ ) is a sign used to cancel a flat or sharp from either a preceding note or the key signature. Naturals are assumed (by default) in key signatures and mentioned only in key signature changes.

In highly chromatic and atonal music, to prevent any ambiguity in performance, natural signs may be placed in front of any note that is to be neither flattened (flatted) nor sharpened (sharped). If a measure contains a double sharp or double flat accidental and the composer wishes to denote the same note with only a single sharp or flat, the natural sign is immediately followed by the (single) sharp or flat symbol.

The Unicode character '♮' (U+266E) may display as a natural sign on some computers.