Piano Keys: Learn Them Right Now! (For Absolute Beginners Only)
Piano Keys: Learn Them Right Now! (For Absolute Beginners Only)
Duane: Good morning. This is Duane. Today I’d like to talk about piano keys for absolute beginners. Those of us who have played the piano for a long time, we just assume that everybody knows what we know, and that’s pretty arrogant really because I certainly don’t know much about a lot of things. If I went to a mechanic shop, and he asked me to hand him some tool, I wouldn’t know what that was.
So I can’t assume that everybody knows the piano keyboard. That came to light recently lately when somebody asked me what those black keys were, so let’s talk about piano keys. If you already know the keyboard, then turn this off. It’s not for you. This is for absolute beginners.
Now, there are 88 keys on the piano keyboard. My camera is not big enough to show you from the bottom to the top. The bottom note starts just like the alphabet does with A. I’m going to play just the white keys here. [Piano Playing] A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Then it stars over again with [piano playing] A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Then it starts over again with [piano playing] A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Then it starts over again with [piano playing] A, B, C, D, E, F, G. A, B, C, D, E, F, G. A, B, C, D, E, F, G. A, B, C, D, E, F, G. A, B, C. The top note is C. Okay?
So there are 88 keys from bottom to top, including the black and white notes. Now, I just played the white keys. The black keys are important to, and we’ll talk about those in a second. To orient you, the middle of the piano, there is usually a name like Steinway or Bosendorfer. Mine says Yamaha right here. Locate the label on your keyboard, and then the closest note to the start of that label is called middle C. It’s always to the left of two black keys. [Piano Playing] Middle C is to the left of two black keys.
Every C on the keyboard, though, is to the left of two black keys. For example, if I play those two black keys [piano playing], that’s a C. If I play those two black keys [piano playing], that’s a C. If I play those two black keys [piano playing], that’s a C. [Piano Playing] I can always find a C by going to the left of two black keys.
I told you that the scale goes A, B, C, D, E, F, G and then starts over again with A. If that’s C, what’s that? [Piano Playing] B. What’s that? [Piano Playing] A. There’s A. That’s the start of the alphabet. A, B, C, D, E, F. Now, let’s stop right there because right to the left of three black keys is F. Every time you find three black keys, go to the left, and that’s where F is. [Piano Playing] You can use those as kind of signposts, the black keys as sign posts to find all the C’s and find all the F’s.
Once you know all the C’s and all the F’s, then it’s just a matter of playing the other notes by counting up or down. If that’s a C, what’s that? [Piano Playing] D. What’s that? [Piano Playing] E. We know that’s F because that’s to the left of three black keys. What’s that? [Piano Playing] G. What’s that? [Piano Playing] H? No. Remember we start over again with A, B, C. Okay?
Those are the white keys. They’re all made from A up to G and then they start over again, right. We can locate the keynotes like C and F by playing the black keys. Now, what are the black keys? Well, they’re called sharps or flats. Each black key has two names. This note is C sharp because it’s a half step above C. Here’s C [piano playing]. If we go up higher — in other words, to the right — a half step, that’s called C sharp. We’re raising the C a half step. If we come down from D, that same black note is called D flat.
Every black key has two names just like you may have two names. Let’s say your name is Bob, but your nickname is, say, Shorty. That’s Bob, and that’s Shorty. It’s the same reality just two names for it. [Piano Playing] There’s D. What’s that? [Piano Playing] That’s right. D sharp because we’re just going up a half step from D. What’s that? [Piano Playing] If we come down from E, that’s E what? E flat.
Remember, flats are down. Sharps are up. Flats are down. You can remember flats go down because if you’re tire gets a flat tire it goes what? It goes down, doesn’t it? Flats are down. Sharps are up. Okay? Now, we know that’s F because we said below three black keys is F, to the left of three black keys. What’s that? [Piano Playing] F sharp. Right. We go a half step above F.
It’s also known as what? G flat. There we are in G. What’s that? [Piano Playing] G sharp because we’re up from G, but we’re down from A, so that’s also A flat. What are the two names of that note? [Piano Playing] A sharp or B flat.
Okay. That’s really all you need to know about the keyboard. Let’s take a quick review. There are 88 keys from the bottom note, A, to the top note, C. Those alphabet names A, B, C, D, E, F, G repeat seven times. A, B, C, D, E, F, G. A, B, C, D, E, F, G. That’s the third time. [Piano Playing] Fourth time, fifth time, sixth time, seventh time, and then there are three notes at the end. So you have seven, we call them octaves.
When you measure an A to an A, that’s called an octave. The word “octave” means eight, like octopus, octavo. Eight notes. Anytime we go from A to A, that’s an octave. From B to B is an octave. From B flat to B flat is an octave. Anytime you play any of the two notes that are named the same like C and C, that’s called an octave. We have seven octaves from the bottom of the keyboard to the top and a little left over.
Then the black keys always have two keys. Remember that. There are sharps if you’re higher and flats if you go lower. Okay? I think that’s about it for piano keys. I hope that helped a lot for those of you that don’t know the keys. Now you do. Thanks for being with me. If you found this helpful, then go on over to my website at www.playpiano.com and sign up for my free newsletter because you’ll learn a ton about piano from that free newsletter. So do that. Thanks for being with me, and we’ll see you again tomorrow with another piano tip. Bye-bye for now.