white keys

The white keys are for the tones of the C major scale, C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. If you want to play in the key of C, just start on any C, stick with the white notes, and you've got it. The black keys on a piano are for sharps and flats.

The white keys principally represent the musical tones, while the black ones represent the intervals to half between these musical tones. The colored keys also aid the pianists in deciphering between the semitone and the natural pitches.

On modern piano keyboards, the seven "natural" notes of each octave are the white keys and the five half-tones are black keys in between.

The most important thing to remember is that a piano has 7 white notes namely C,D,E,F,G,A,B and 5 black notes C#, D#, F#, G#, A# or Db, Eb, Gb, Ab, Bb (depending upon which key your in).

Just like C major, A minor consists of all the white keys on the piano (no sharps or flats). Just like C major (for the major key signatures), A minor will be considered our staring point (0) in the order of sharps and flats. Notice there are no sharps or flats in the key signature of the A minor scale (shown below).

Likewise, he found that people could remember a sequence of up to seven tones, but not much more. This limit on short-term memory capacity was termed “the magical number seven, plus or minus two”. This may be one reason why we use seven notes in our scales, rather than 12, in order to help us remember more easily.

What Does the Key Symbol Mean to You? The key symbol means so many things. It can be a symbol of personal knowledge, a key to unlock inner strength and contentment. It can also symbolise virginity and virtue, two very important concepts in medieval and Early Modern times.

natural” White keys are also referred to as the “natural” keys. If using letters, they are named from A through G, and then the series of seven repeats itself. The black keys are named “sharp” or “flat” after the white key they are closest to, so each black key actually has two names.

The white keys represent the musical tones A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The black keys differ from the white keys in that they represent half-step intervals - known as sharps and flats - between various notes. A group of seven white keys and five black keys together make up the 12 notes we call an octave.

The 88 key piano includes 7 octaves plus an additional 3 keys below the bottom C. The contemporary piano has 52 white keys and 36 black keys with one octave equal to 7 white keys and 5 black keys.

Of the 88 keys found on the typical full-sized piano, there are 52 white keys and 36 black keys. The white keys are known as natural music notes, while the black keys are sharps and flats.

In total, there are 24 keys and 30 ways to spell them. In the next few lessons covering the circle of 5ths, I will show you how you can start memorizing all 30 key spellings. It sounds far scarier than it is, but it will take some effort.