Understanding the Piano Keys

Piano key charts can be very helpful for beginning players, just as a fingering chart would be for any other instrument. You need know which button to press in order to make a certain kind of sound. But if you haven’t learned much about music theory yet, certain parts of a piano key chart might be confusing.

Introduction

There are a few questions that someone looking at a chart for the first time might have like, “why do some keys have the same letters as other keys?” or “why do some keys have multiple letters?” In this article, we can answer these questions and a few more, so that you can use these charts effectively and grow your understanding of musical concepts.

Understanding the Letters

Let us look at the image of a piano key chart shown below as we go over some of the basics. Each white key is assigned a letter name, telling us what kind of sound, or “tone” that key makes. In music we use the letters A through G to describe a spectrum of different tones.

The order of the keys on the chart is important. The order shows us the relative highness or lowness of the sound the key makes. The more to the left side that a piano key is, the lower the sound it makes. The more to the right it is, the higher the sound it makes. You can experiment with this on your computer or phone using a digital keyboard app.

This leads to the question, “why do some keys have the same letters?” The answer is that as a sound gets higher and higher (or lower and lower), eventually it comes to a familiar place. There is a stability that can be heard when you compare a “lower” tone A to a higher tone “A,” for example. This is called an “octave,” and acoustically speaking it is an exact doubling of the speed of the sound waves, or “frequency.” The two “A”s are quite literally on the same wavelength. That is why musicians label them with the same letter –  to show their similarity.

If you have a need to be very specific about which “A” you are talking about, you can add numbers to them, such as A2, A3, or A4. The higher the number, the higher the tone. This lets us talk about different “registers,” but on a piano key chart, that extra level of detail is usually not included.

Tones and Semitones: Using the Black Keys

In Western music, the relative highness or lowness of sound, what we call “pitch,” is measured by the space between one tone and the next. For example, the sound we call A is one whole “tone” away from the sound we call B, the next white key to the right. It is also one whole tone away from the tone we call G, the next white key to the left.

Did you notice how I called the spaces between those letters “whole” tones? That is because we use a smaller measurement of musical space as well. This smaller measurement is called a “semitone,” and it is half the size of a whole tone. These two different sizes are also called “steps” and “half-steps,” respectively.

This is where the black keys on the chart come in. The black keys show us where the semitones are between white keys. Some letters are naturally only one semitone away from each other, like between B and C, or E and F. That is why there is no black key between those letters on the chart. But the others do have a semitone in between them, and those are the sounds that the black keys make.

Black Key Letter Names and Enharmonic Equivalents

The black key tones have their own names as well. More than one name actually, depending on how you look at them. We can use the next piano key chart shown below to illustrate what I mean. 

When we talk about tones that are a semitone above a given letter, we use the term “sharp.” For example, the black key just above an A on the piano key chart is called A-sharp, and in music we use the symbol that looks similar to a hashtag to show “sharp” tones.

When we talk about tones that are a semitone below a given letter, we use the term “flat.” For example, the black key just below B on the piano key chart is called B-flat, and in music we use the symbol that looks similar to a little lower case “b” to show “flat” tones.

As you can see, the A-sharp and the B-flat on the chart take up the same musical space. In other words, they are the same sound, however you choose to name it. In music we call these “enharmonic equivalents.” Why does the same sound have different names, you ask? Well, there is a complicated answer for that, but the simple explanation is that it all depends on the context of the music. Sometimes it is useful to think of a tone in one way, other times it is better to think of it in another way. Usually when one is moving through semitones to higher sounds, one uses the sharp letter names (ex. A, A-sharp, B). When one is moving lower, they use flat letter names (ex. B, B-flat, A). Scale organization has a lot to do with it too, but that’s a conversation for another article.

Figuring out Major Scales with the Piano Chart

With a piano key chart, you can begin to see the patterns involved in musical scales. A scale is a collection of tones, usually organized in ascending or descending order. The most common type of scale in Western music is called a “major” scale, and it is built using a particular pattern of whole tones and semitones.

The tone pattern goes as follows: Whole – Whole – Semi – Whole – Whole – Whole – Semi.

Music teachers like to teach the C-major scale on the piano first, because if you follow the pattern starting on a C, you will see that the scale includes only white keys. But you can start a “major” scale on any piano key you wish. The G-major scale, for example, starts on G and uses all white keys, except it replaces the tone F with the tone F-sharp. As long as you follow the pattern, the music will sound “major.” A deeper dive into musical scales with take another article, but you can learn more about them at sites like simplifyingtheory.com.

The “major” pattern creates a musical system that to most people sounds happy and light. Most importantly, it makes the letter you start the pattern on sound special, as if the whole musical world revolves around it. You can test this idea by playing a C-major scale, pausing on the second to last sound, the B. Most people feel that the music “leaves it hanging,” like looking at a puzzle with one missing piece. It just doesn’t feel right until you complete the pattern by hitting that final, higher C.

Intervals: The Space Between Letters

How far away is the letter A on the chart from the letter C? The answer might seem simple, but it actually trips up a lot of people. You might say the answer is two letters away, but that isn’t quite how we talk about it in musical terms. A piano key chart is a helpful visual to learn about musical “space.”

In music, we use the term “interval” to measure the space between tones. The interval between one tone and the next, like between A and B, is called a “second.” The interval between one tone and another two letters away, like between A and C, is called a “third.” Use the chart I provide here as a guide. The trick is to remember that when you are measuring intervals, always include the letter you are starting on. A to A is a 1st, A to B is a 2nd, and so on.

This chart shows measurements from left to right, or forward in the alphabet. But you can also measure from right to left, or backward in the alphabet. That means that the interval from the top A to the G before it is a “second,” and from that top A to the F is a “third.”

Quiz Yourself!

Now that you have some background in how to read the piano key chart, try quizzing yourself! You can also sign-up for private lessons for guided practice directly with me.

Memorizing where all the keys are is an important step in playing piano fluently, so a little time each day reviewing what key plays what sound will be very helpful in the long term. Recognizing the distance, or intervals, between sounds will also be useful as you learn to read music, and learn about more advanced musical topics like “keys” and “chord qualities.”

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