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What Is an Accidental in Music? John Stafford Smith's, "Star Spangled Banner" Example
A sharp (♯) or flat (♭) symbol that designates a chromatic note that a composer adds into a tune is called an accidental. In the following example, the “♯” sign in “F♯” is an accidental.
Suppose you’re singing “The Star Spangled Banner” in the key of C major. If the tune had been composed without using any chromatic notes (notes outside the notes of the C major scale), then you would sing these notes:
and the tune would sound completely different from the tune you know. Instead, songwriter John Stafford Smith did this:
That’s the sequence of notes you actually sing.