This is due to a curious phenomenon causing pitches to sound the same at different octaves, even though they’re higher and lower than others that share the same name. In other words, then, an octave is the distance between any key and the one above or below it with the same name.Īs you already know, the groups of keys - and the names of the pitches they produce - repeat up and down the keyboard. We can call each group an octave, though the word technically refers to the distance that it spans - as opposed to the group of twelve keys itself. We’re going to investigate these groups of twelve a little more closely in order to understand how the keyboard is put together. Get your head around these and you’ll be able to more easily come to terms with notes, chords and everything else you have to learn in order to be a great pianist. While they relate in a variety of ways to what you’ll read about below, they go into greater detail on certain topics, so they’re worth checking out if you haven’t done so already. To best realise this, you should consider this article alongside the other posts in the Piano Music for Beginners series, on piano notes and piano chords. On this, you can go on to develop a rounded piano-playing ability that’s versatile enough to take you in any musical direction that you might want to go in. It will form a solid foundation of theory and practice for you. For most, this will involve learning note names as a stepping stone to interacting with sheet music, but even if you don’t intend to make use of notation when you play, this awareness is no less useful. No matter the style of music, or the standard to which it’s played, it’s essential to have an understanding of the keys and their relationship to one another.

If you’re aiming to be one, then you’ll need to get familiar with it too. If there’s one thing that can be said for certain about pianists, it’s that they know their way around a keyboard.

Music keys