Piano Keyboard
Everyone has seen a piano keyboard, but not everyone knows the names of all the keys. This short introduction will teach you how to easily identify all those keys!
A keyboard can be subdivided into octaves:
Each octave is comprised of 7 white keys and 5 black keys. Here is a picture of one octave:
The easiest way to memorize keyboard keys is to start with the white keys. They represent the natural notes: A, B, C, D, E, F and G:
Notice that the first key in octave is a C, not an A. There are good reasons for that, but they are too technical for this basic introduction.
As you can see on the picture above, the 5 black key names are based on the adjacent white keys. For example, the black key to the left of the D key is called Db (pronounced “D flat”). Notice that the same black key is also on the right of the C key. So, we can also call it C# (pronounced “C sharp”). Therefore, each black key can have 2 names: one with a “#” and another with a “b”. A bit confusing, but remember that music theory has been evolving for hundreds of years, so it has accumulated a lot of conventions that don't seem very logical at the first glance.
If you are just starting learning the piano keyboard, start with our quiz for the white keys. It shouldn't require too long to memorize the 7 white keys. Once you know them, the black keys can be recognized easily since their names are derived from the names of the neighboring white keys. When you think you are ready, take our quiz that includes all 12 (7 + 5) keys in the octave. Once you get 100% on that quiz, you can proudly say that you know all 88 keys on the piano keyboard!
