Chapter 1: Finding the Notes
The first step to accompanying yourself on the piano is to name the keys.
Before we worry about fingering or music theory, the most important part of playing piano is to know the name of each key. This may seem daunting when looking at all 88 keys, but thankfully there are patterns to help you remember them.
IN THIS LESSON
First off, let’s talk about the white keys. The white keys are lettered A-G. Does that sound like too few letters? That’s because they repeat! In the image below, you can see how the keys are divided into seven groups on a standard 88 key keyboard
(if your keyboard has a different number of keys, don’t worry - the pattern is the same)
If we look at group 7 (zoomed in on the right), we see a full octave - notice that the full octave starts with C, even though the first note at the far left of the keyboard is an A.
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An octave is the full group of all of the notes used in standard western musical notation (12 in total - C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab, A, A#/Bb, B)
Why we start with C
Western music likes to use the major scale to choose it’s notes, and C Major uses only white notes, so it is often easiest to play.
What you need to know is that C is your best friend when it comes to finding the notes. This is because of how the black keys are clustered. Take a look at the full keyboard above - do you notice a pattern that emerges among the black keys?
The black keys are divided into groups of 2 and 3, as shown in the image below.
If we find any group of 2 black keys, and find the key immediately to the left of this group, that is C.
Specifically C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7, and C8. But that doesn’t really matter too much - as long as you know they’re all C.
Take a few moments to practice finding C on your keyboard.
Follow along to the audio track and compare the sound of the note that is played in the track to the sound that comes out of your keyboard. Does it match? Great! You’ve found C :)
Now that you’ve practiced finding C, you can use this to find all of the other white key notes in relation to C.
As long as you remember to stop at G and continue with A, you’ll be able to find all of your notes.
Does this sound like it would take a lot of time to find all of your keys if you’re always going back to C and singing the alphabet? That’s because it would! Thankfully, with most pop songs, you’re only going to need to and find and identify 4-8 individual keys so that you can play a version of it that sounds enough like the original to work as accompaniment. And over time, you’ll naturally start to identify the notes faster. But to save yourself some energy down the road, go ahead and practice identifying the keys with some interactive exercises in the next lesson of this chapter.
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Octave
An octave is the full group of all of the notes used in standard western musical notation (12 in total - C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab, A, A#/Bb, B)
Standard Western Musical Notation the word used to refer to how most western music is recorded on paper
Note
The note in standard western musical notation is the symbol representing the pitch and duration of a musical sound. Notes can be higher or lower than each other and can be thought of as building blocks that make up chords and melodies
Chord
A chord is a combination of at least three notes played simultaneously. Chords can be thought of as expressive punctuation that connects the notes and gives structure to a song.
Melody
A melody is a series of notes played or sung in succession of each other. In practical terms, it is the pattern of the notes that the singer sings in a song and can be thought of as a musical sentence or paragraph.
Major Scale
The Major Scale is the series of notes that is best explained in the song “Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music.
C Major
C Major refers to a Major Scale that begins on the note C