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Learning The Notes Of Each Key

In this article we will explain one of the most important parts of learning piano, and that is to learn the names of each note of each key.

Let’s get started.

Before you can play anything, you need to know the notes of your keys.

Although this can seem quite daunting at first, it won’t take as long as you think it would to learn the names of all your piano keys.

Why?

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Because although you have between 61 and 88 keys on your piano or keyboard, there are only twelve notes in music. These run from A to G. The notes A, B, C, D, E, F and G are all white keys. The sharps and flats are the black keys.

One way to learn this is to firstly find the “C” key. This will be the first key to the left of two black keys. Now if you move up 7 white keys, you’ll find another C. This is called an octave. There are twelve notes in an octave (you can see this yourself by counting all the white AND black keys in between the two C’s your holding down.

Now you know where the C notes are, you can work out all the other white keys as long as you know the alphabet.

Just remember that when you get to G, the next white note will be an A. There is no “H”.

Now that you’ve learnt the names for the white keys, you’re probably wondering what the names of the black keys are. This will be a little more complicated, but it’s still quite straight forward once you get your head round it.

If we are starting at the C key again, the black key to the right of it will be C# (which stands for C sharp). This note can also be called a Db (D flat).

To make this simpler, we will write out all the notes that are possible in all music:

C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, C

We’ve only written sharps, and not flats… but they can be either. For example, A sharp is also B flat – they are only called by different names depending on the key you’re playing in – which is more advanced than you need to know right now.

Those of you with a keen attention to detail would have noticed that there is no sharp key between E and F, and B and C. Why is this? Well, that’s just the nature of music, and mathematics, and it has caused music to be labelled in this way.

One thing to bear in mind is that it is sharp when the black key is to the right of a white key, and it is flat when the black key is to the left of the white key.

And that’s all there is to it! It will be a good exercise for you to practice playing a note and then working out the name for it. Knowing the name of the notes is an important building block in learning to play piano.

Also, this knowledge of music will applies to all instruments, not just the piano. So if you ever take up another instrument it will still be valuable knowledge. Even more reason to learn it well!