In Chapter 4, you learned that on the music staff, notes can be shown on the lines (E-G-B-D) or the spaces (D-F-A-C-E-G) and you can raise or lower these notes using sharp and flat signs. (Flattening — or diminishing — a note means dropping it down a semitone or fret. Augmenting — or raising — a note means sharpening or raising it a semitone or fret.) Instead of placing lots of sharps or flats into the notation, which can look cluttered and confusing, you can instead put them at the beginning of a piece of music. This method tells you that all the notes that have a sharp or flat sign in front of them should be played that way unless a natural sign tells you otherwise.