Transcript

BYRON DUECK

The keyboard is made up of seven recurring white notes, or white keys. And these are named after the letters of the alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. And that sequence of note names recurs across the keyboard, so you can find it down here: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, followed by: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and then again: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A.

Most keyboards like this electronic one don’t begin and end on A. Instead they begin and end on C. So on this keyboard the lowest note is C, and the highest note is C. And in between those notes you have several other Cs. Here too the sequence is simply continuous: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.

Having introduced that, let me help you orient yourself to the MIDI keyboard by finding two different notes. One is the note C. You can find C by locating the two black keys that are close to one another. You can see that the MIDI keyboard is made up of a recurring series of black keys as well. Two black keys, three, two, three, and two. To find the Cs, you find the pair of black keys, and the note immediately to the left of those two is C. So here again, two black keys, C is close, there, and two black keys here, and there’s the C.

The note that is easy to confuse with C is F. F is found immediately to the left of the three black keys on the MIDI keyboard. So wherever you have three black keys, immediately to the left of that is the note F. Three black keys, F. Three black keys, F.

Once you know where C and F are, it’s relatively easy to find any other note that you might want to look at. So for instance, if you’re looking for B, you find note C first. C is located to the left of the two black keys, and B is the note immediately below it. Similarly, if you’re looking for the note E, you can find that one of two ways. Either you can find C next to the two black keys, and go up two notes: C, D, E. Or alternatively, you can find the F next to the three black keys and descend by one note: F, E, and you’ve located the E.

So, once you have these basic anchoring keys in mind, it should be possible to find any note. You should now be able to identify the white keys on the piano by their alphabetic names, and to distinguish two frequently confused keys, C and F.