Learning Piano Article 05: Piano Notes

Ok, so we have learned an introduction to piano scales, we have discussed basic piano chord constructions and touched up on the piano scale modes. Is this all there is to learning how to play piano? Not a chance. There is so much more to learn and in this learning piano article, we will get into naming the piano notes.

It should be a goal of yours to learn how to read the notes on a piano music sheet and fully understand how they represent the keys on your piano. It really is not that difficult once you begin to learn the basics.

OK, first thing to know about piano notes is that a full size piano consists of 88 keys and contains 7 octaves beginning with an A note on the far left and ending with a C note on the far right. Therefore, the piano keys begin with the A tone and move up in octaves to the next A tone and it repeats 7 times and then it ends with a Bb, B, and a C tone.

One thing we must first do before moving on to piano note identification is locating the middle C tone. Using the knowledge that we just discussed about the piano keys, we know that the first note on the piano is an A tone. Go ahead and count 40 notes above A, make sure you are counting both black keys and white keys. The 40th piano note is middle C. Now lets move on and discuss the different piano staffs.

The diagram shown above is a picture of a piano Grand Staff. The top portion of the grand staff is known as the Treble Clef while the bottom part of the grand staff is called the Bass Clef. Lets look at where the piano notes would fall under the Treble and Bass Clef.

As you can see from the diagram, middle C separates both clefs. Therefore anything played above middle C would be located in the Treble Clef while any notes found in the Bass Clef would be played below middle C.

Another thing to look for in the Grand Staff is the key signature symbols. We learned from previous articles that the # is the symbol for the key signature sharp while the b is the symbol for the key signature flat. If there were key signature symbols on the staff next to the note letters than you would know what key the song is in according to your knowledge on piano scales. This picture of the staff does not have any key signature on it which means the song would be in the key of C and only white notes would be played.

As you can see, it really is not that difficult to understand music sheets. This ofcourse if only the beginning of learning how to play piano but it is essential in your learning piano development.