Some of them had only one raised note per octave, others had four. Later on, organ makers began adding raised keys for sharps and flats.Īt first, every organ keyboard was different. Where do the Colors Black and White Come From?ĭid you know that the very first keyboard instrument, the pipe organ, was invented over 2000 years ago in Greece and had only “white” keys? Most of these keyboards were small, with only a dozen keys or so, so it wasn’t too hard to keep track of which note was what. You can do it by feel! The shape and position of the black keys help pianists keep track of where their hands are even when they’re not looking at the keyboard. ![]() Try closing your eyes and finding middle C. īecause of the way the black piano keys are shaped, you don’t even have to look at them to find your way around the piano. Hoffman’s Piano Street video lesson, or play our Piano Street online game. That’s so much easier than trying to pick a note out of 88 piano keys that all look exactly the same! If you’d like a fun and easy way to learn the letter names of the notes on the piano keyboard, check out Mr. To know the letter name of any note on the keyboard, all you have to do is memorize where the letters of the musical alphabet belong in the simple pattern of seven white keys and five black keys. In fact, if you find any group of two black keys, slide down one step to the left and you’ve got a C. You’d have to count your way up 24 piano keys! And then what if you lost your place while you were trying to play a song? You’d have to count up from the bottom all over again.īut add the black keys, and now can you find middle C? Easy-peasy! Find the group of two black piano keys closest to the center of the piano and then slide down to the nearest white key on the left. So which note is what? Say you knew that the keyboard started on A and you wanted to find middle C. Imagine a piano keyboard with no black piano keys: Here’s another advantage to having black and white piano keys. We’ve already talked about the fact that having black and white keys on a piano makes it easier to find sharps and flats and to understand scales and key signatures. You can hear a lot of chromatic scale tones in this famous piece, Flight of the Bumblebee. There’s a special scale called the chromatic scale, which is what you get if you play every single key on the piano. Even professional concert pianists practice their scales – it’s that important! Playing piano scales helps you understand how the black and white keys work together to create all the scales in modern western music. That’s why it’s a good idea to practice your scales A LOT. Remembering which piano keys to play can be tricky. Well, maybe “simply” isn’t the right way to put it. But if you’re playing a song in the key of D flat, that same black note will replace G in the scale, and since it is one step to the left of G, we’ll call it G flat.īlack keys on piano allow musicians to play music in any key by simply remembering which black key to play instead of which white key. In the key of G, the black note replaces F in the scale and is one step to the right of F, so we call it F sharp. How do you know which name to use? That will depend on where the black key fits in the musical scale you’re playing. Notice that F sharp can also be called G flat, because it is the first black note to the left of G. If you want to play a song in the key of G, you’d use F sharp instead of F. For example the black key just to the right of F is called F sharp. ![]() How do sharps and flats work on a piano keyboard? Take any white key and the first key to the right is that note sharped, while the first key to the left is that note flatted. Sign up for a free account now and receive over 300 video lessons (and counting!) accessible on any smart device.
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