Lesson 3: The Keyboard
A solid understanding of the principles of
music theory requires a solid understanding of the piano keyboard. You
may already have this solid understanding, but I'd recommend reading
this lesson anyway.
Notice that a piano keyboard is a
collection of white and black keys. Unless you are a being from another
planet, you will know that pressing a key causes the piano's key
mechanism to operate. This causes a small felt-covered hammer to strike
a string (or set of strings) inside the piano, and you hear a sound.
It is the black keys that help you
understand "where you are" on a keyboard. The black keys are grouped
together in alternating groups of two and three. The note 'C' is the
white note that is just to the left of each group of two black notes.
Here is a piano keyboard with the white notes properly labeled:
Now, you've often heard that term 'MIDDLE
C'. If you sit roughly at the middle of a piano and look down, you
should be looking at MIDDLE C. As you can see there are several C's as
you glance up and down the piano keyboard. The one in the middle is
called MIDDLE C.
The naming of the
black notes requires that you understand what sharps, flats
and semitones are. In our western culture, the
smallest space (interval) between two pitches is called a semitone.
Looking at a piano keyboard, you will see that a semitone above the
note 'B' is 'C'. That is because there is no note between them;
therefore, the distance between 'B' and 'C' is one semitone.
Similarly, the notes 'E' and 'F' are as close together as they can be:
there is no note between them, so they are said to be one semitone
apart..
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Want more semitones? Look at the note 'C'
(doesn't matter which one). The semitone above 'C' is that black note,
the lowest of the group of two black notes. What do we call that note?
We call it 'C-sharp'. So the answer to the question, "Tell me the name
of the note that is one semitone higher than 'C'" is 'C-sharp'. What's
the note that is one semitone higher than 'F'? 'F-sharp'! One semitone
higher than 'A'? 'A-sharp'. Any black note can be named for the white
note that is just below it in the manner just described.
Now, look at the note 'G'. The semitone down
from that note would be the black note which is the lowest of the group
of three black notes. We would call that note 'G-flat'. Did you notice?
'F-sharp' and 'G-flat' are the same pitch! All of the black notes on
the piano keyboard have two different names. Give two names for the
black note which is the middle of the group of three...The answer would
be 'G-sharp' and 'A-flat'.
Here is a picture of a keyboard with all of
the keys properly labeled, with a staff showing where each note is
located. In printed music, we use this sign to indicate 'sharp':  ,
and this sign to indicate 'flat': 
Make sure you study this lesson carefully
before going on to the quiz. The quiz requires you to fully understand
the following:
Middle 'C'; semitone; sharp; flat; A
complete understanding of the piano keyboard.
Here's a screen
shot of Gary teaching Lesson 3 from our CD-ROM course:
 (Click
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