5 Sharps: B Major / G Sharp Minor
Five sharps is B major, or G sharp minor. The sharps are F, C, G, D and A sharp, and a semitone above A sharp is B. The same sounding key can also be written as C flat major with seven flats, but almost nobody does.
5 sharps
B major / G♯ minor
The last sharp written is A♯. Go up one semitone from it and you have the major key: B major.
B major scale
B C♯ D♯ E F♯ G♯ A♯
G♯ minor scale (relative minor)
G♯ A♯ B C♯ D♯ E F♯
This one has two names
B major and C♭ major are the same twelve pitches written two different ways: 5 sharps versus 7 flats. B major is the spelling almost every score uses, because 7 flats is more to read for the identical sound.
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B major scale
B C♯ D♯ E F♯ G♯ A♯
G♯ minor scale
G♯ A♯ B C♯ D♯ E F♯
The first signature with a genuine alternative
Up to four sharps, each key has one sensible spelling and the flat-side equivalent is so remote as to be theoretical. At five sharps that changes: B major and C flat major are the same twelve pitches, and both are real notated keys.
The choice is settled by arithmetic. B major needs five accidentals; C flat major needs seven, including a C flat and an F flat, which are notes that make a reader stop and think. Five is fewer than seven, so B major is what gets written, and C flat major survives mainly as a temporary key inside music that is already deep in flats.
Where the sharps have got to
B major is B C sharp D sharp E F sharp G sharp A sharp. Five of the seven notes are raised; only B and E are natural. The scale contains no note requiring an unusual spelling — no double sharps, no E sharp — which is part of why it is the practical choice at this pitch level.
On a piano this is the point where the black keys become an advantage rather than an obstacle. Five sharps means five black keys, and the two white notes, B and E, fall where the thumb naturally wants to go. It is precisely the geometry that made B major a traditional first scale for piano students in some teaching lineages, on the argument that a hand learns its natural shape faster on a key that fits it.
G sharp minor
The relative minor is G sharp minor. It is not a common key, and where it does appear it is usually reached from within a piece rather than chosen as a starting point — often as the relative minor of a section already in B, or as a modulation from E major.
It also demonstrates a small trap in minor keys with many sharps. Raising the seventh degree of G sharp minor for a cadence means raising F sharp, and the note a semitone above F sharp is written F double sharp, not G. Double sharps look alarming the first time but they follow the same letter rule as everything else: the seventh degree of a G sharp scale has to be some kind of F, so a raised one is F double sharp.
On the instruments
For guitar, B major is a barre key and offers no open-string tonic — but it is one fret from the extremely comfortable A major and B flat, so guitarists in this key very often capo rather than barre throughout.
For transposing wind, B major is worse than E and better than nothing: a B flat instrument reads it as C sharp, seven sharps, which in practice means a copyist would rewrite the part in D flat instead. This is the ordinary working reality of a signature this far around the circle — the concert key and the written part frequently disagree about whether the music is in sharps or flats at all.
The seven chords of B major
Every major key produces the same pattern of chord qualities — major on the first, fourth and fifth degrees, minor on the second, third and sixth, diminished on the seventh. Only the names change.
Questions people ask about this signature
- Five sharps is what key?
- B major, or G sharp minor. The five sharps are F, C, G, D and A sharp.
- Is B major the same as C flat major?
- The same sounding pitches, written differently. B major uses five sharps and C flat major uses seven flats, so B major is what is normally written; C flat major appears mainly inside music already in many flats.
- Why does G sharp minor need a double sharp?
- Because raising its seventh degree for a cadence means raising F sharp by another semitone. The note has to keep the letter F, so it is written F double sharp rather than G natural.