Lesson 1: 白色琴鍵 (White keys)

A standard full piano keyboard contains 88 keys, which consist of 52 white keys and 36 black keys. Each key represents a unique note, or pitch. In general, the keys on the right are higher pitch than the keys on the left. In other words, the relative physical positions of the keys on a keyboard will tell you the relative pitches of those notes.

If you look at the keyboard carefully, you will notice that it has a repeating "pattern" as follows:

Starting from the left, the first white key is C, followed by D, E, F, G, A, B. The eighth white key is C again. Since the second C is on the right of the first C, it has a higher pitch than the first C, and we say it is an octave higher than the first C. Another way to understand it is that the "distance" between the first and second C's is an octave. The concept of "octave" is very important in music.

In the figure above, there are black keys between some of the white keys. As mentioned above, the relative position of keys tells you their relative pitches. Therefore, the pitch of each black key is between the pitches of the two white keys on its left and right. Note that not all adjacent white keys have a black key between them. In particular, there is no black key between E and F, and between B and C.

The figure above also has an arrow pointing at the first C with the label "Middle C". There are several C's on a piano keyboard, which one of them is the "Middle C"?

Ans: When you are facing the middle of the keyboard, the C in front of you is the "Middle C".

Questions that you should be able to answer at the end of this lesson:

1. How many keys are there in a standard piano keyboard?
2. What are the 7 letters for the white keys?
3. What is an "octave"?
4. Name the places where there is no black key.
5. Locate Middle C on the piano.