The White Keys

The notes on the white piano keys use just seven letters: C, D, E, F, G, A and B. After B the letters start again at C, all the way up the keyboard.

In this first lesson you learn the white keys. You start where many songs begin, on the "C" note.

C is easy to find once you look at the black keys instead. They come in groups of two and three. C is the white key just to the left of every group of two.

Which note is C? The white key immediately left of two black keys. On the staff that C is [c5] when it is middle C.

Middle C is the C in the middle of the keyboard, and when you sit down at the piano you will almost always start with your right thumb on it.

Notice that the keys on the piano repeat the same pattern over and over. Each repetition is called an "octave," and C is the first note in each octave. "Middle C" is the first note in the middle octave.

With your thumb on middle C, your other four fingers land on D, E, F and G without moving your hand. On sheet music, middle C sits on its own short line between the two staves.

That is all the theory this step needs.

When you click play, you listen to a few notes and then try to play them back. It is easier than it sounds. You just play your way up the white keys, one at a time, starting on C.

The notes come from the C major scale, which has no black keys in it at all. If a note sounds wrong, you pressed a black key or skipped a white one.

No MIDI keyboard yet? This step works on the on-screen keyboard too. Next comes Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, where you find a whole tune by ear.

The first notes of the C major scale, shown then waited for. Start on C, one white key at a time.