Sharps, flats, and courtesy accidentals

QuickStave draws the accidentals your key signature and bar require automatically — you never “add” one for that. The Note palette’s F1 K submenu is for the cases that logic doesn’t cover: overriding a pitch, respelling it, or adding a courtesy reminder.

Setting a pitch’s accidental

With a note selected, open F1 K then press:

• S — sharp
• F — flat
• N — natural
• D then S/F — double sharp / double flat

Applying an accidental alters the note’s actual pitch — a sharp isn’t a cosmetic glyph, it raises what’s played.

Respelling enharmonically

F1 K R cycles the note through its enharmonic spellings at the same sounding pitch — F♯4 becomes G♭4, then back. Use it when a note’s letter name doesn’t match the surrounding key or harmony, without changing how it sounds.

Required vs. cautionary accidentals

QuickStave computes required accidentals for you: the key signature, the first occurrence of an altered pitch in a bar, and that alteration carrying through the rest of the bar until the barline resets it. Grace notes follow the same rules. It also draws the reminders a reader needs, plain, without brackets:

• After a clef change, or where an octave line starts or ends, a pitch the bar has already altered shows its accidental again.
• A note right after the barline restates or cancels an accidental the bar before left on its pitch, even where the key signature restores it.
• After a note tied over the barline, the next note of that pitch in the bar shows its accidental.

You never place these yourself — they’re a consequence of the pitch and the key.

Cautionary accidentals (F1 K B) are different: a parenthesized reminder for a spot the automatic logic wouldn’t otherwise show a glyph for — a natural later in a bar on a pitch the previous bar altered, for instance, or on the same letter at another octave, where a performer might otherwise assume the alteration still applies. Toggle it on a note that’s already at the pitch you want; it doesn’t change the pitch, only whether a reminder glyph is drawn. On a note a tie carries onto a new system, it repeats the accidental there.

Tips

• Respelling and cautionary accidentals only make sense once a note’s actual pitch is already correct — set that first with S/F/N.
• See Entering notes for how a note gets onto the page before you adjust its accidental.