Notes and the keyboard

What is a note?

Sing a really low note, then a really high one. That “how high or low” is called pitch. Sound is just air wiggling back and forth: the faster it wiggles, the higher the pitch.

Here’s the wild part: almost all the music you know is made from just 12 different notes, used again and again higher and lower.

Finding your way on the keyboard

A piano keyboard shows those 12 notes really clearly. The white keys are named with the letters A to G. The black keys are “in between” notes. Each one borrows a neighbour’s name with a sharp (♯, meaning a bit higher) or a flat (♭, a bit lower). The black key just after C is C♯.

Want to find your way around? Look at the black keys: they come in groups of 2 and 3. C is always the white key just to the left of a group of 2.

Play around below. Notice how the notes get higher as you go right.

Octaves

After B, the letters start again at C. That new C sounds like the first one, just higher. The jump from one C to the next is called an octave, and it covers all 12 notes.

The little number after a note’s name tells you which octave it’s in. C4 is “middle C”, right in the middle of a piano; C5 is the next C up. Try playing C4 and C5 together: they blend almost like one note.

Quick quiz