Notes, clefs and accidentals
Notes show how long a sound lasts: โฉ quarter, โช eighth, โซ and โฌ beamed pairs, plus the sheet-music set from whole to sixteenth. The music note symbol page explains each value.
A clef sets the pitch of the staff. ๐ is the treble or G clef, whose curl wraps the G line; ๐ข is the bass or F clef, whose two dots sit around the F line; ๐ก is the C clef used for viola. Accidentals change a note: โฏ sharp raises it a semitone, โญ flat lowers it a semitone, โฎ natural cancels both, and ๐ช ๐ซ raise or lower by two semitones.
Use the real โฏ and โญ in chord charts and song sheets, like Cโฏm or Bโญ7, instead of # and b. The sharp is not the same character as the hashtag #: in โฏ the vertical lines are straight and the cross lines slant. The language C# is written with # because โฏ is not on keyboards.
Dynamics, repeats and other markings
Dynamics tell you how loud to play: ๐ piano is soft and ๐ forte is loud, and ๐ mezzo before them makes mp or mf. The hairpins ๐ and ๐ mean get louder (crescendo) and get softer (decrescendo). ๐ fermata means hold the note.
For the road map of a piece, ๐ and ๐ mark a section to repeat, ๐ segno and ๐ coda mark the jumps in D.S. and coda instructions, and ๐ is the final barline. ๐ด common time is 4/4 and ๐ต cut time is 2/2.
Will music symbols show up everywhere?
The classic โฉ โช โซ โฌ โญ โฎ โฏ have been in Unicode since version 1.1 and work almost everywhere. The clefs, rests and dynamics come from the Musical Symbols block (Unicode 3.1), which needs a font like Noto Music, so they can show as boxes on some phones. They are perfect for short labels, posts and chord charts; for full scores, use notation software.
Instrument emoji are the easy way to say what you play in a band bio or a Discord role: ๐น ๐ธ ๐ป ๐บ ๐ท ๐ฅ. Some are recent, like ๐ช flute and ๐ช maracas from Unicode 15.0 (2022), so older phones may not show them.
How to type music symbols
On Windows, Alt + 13 types โช and Alt + 14 types โซ in many programs. In Word, type a code like 266F and press Alt + X to get โฏ. On a Mac, Control + Command + Space opens the Character Viewer; search for "music". In HTML, use ♯, ♭ and ♪. In LaTeX math mode, \sharp, \flat and \natural give โฏ โญ โฎ.