Knowing where F is is another way to label the white keys. Don’t forget that we said there are two and three black keys. There is a F before three black keys. If you have a keyboard with you piano for all review or are at your piano, look at the set of three black keys and note where F is. You can also look at the picture I’ve put on this page. So, what letter comes after the letter F? It’s clear that it’s G. What letter comes after the letter G? In the regular alphabet, it is H, but in the musical alphabet, there is no H. You go back to A after G. So, going up the keyboard, the keys are F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, etc. If you know where F is, you know what each of the white keys is called. You only have to know where F is. Or, as we already saw, all you need to know is where C is. When you’re not at your keyboard, learn the names of the notes that go with the white keys in your head. Make sure you remember it. You should also look at your piano keyboard while you do this.
How to Write Down the Names of the Black Keys on a Piano Keyboard
So you know what the white keys are called. Let’s try the black ones. There are “sharps” and “flats” in music. “#” means “sharp,” while “b” means “flat.” I’ll explain this to you in easy-to-understand terms.
Sharp just means to play the key that is right next to it on your keyboard. So, if you’re on C, the next black key after C is called C sharp (C#). D sharp (D#) is the key that comes right after D. After D sharp, the next white key is E. The white key F comes after E. After F, the black key is F sharp (F#). G is the key after F#. After G, the key is G#, then A. The A# is the next black key after A. On the keyboard, we’re moving to the right. You go from A# to B, then to C. The next notes are C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, and C. You should be able to think about what notes each key makes without looking at your keyboard. You should have a clear idea of what is going on. Try to fix it.
So all we did was look at the sharps. C# and D# are the two keys in the set of two black keys. F#, G#, and A# are the black keys in the set of three. So, as you move to the right (up the keyboard), you’ll find sharps. But if we move down (to the left), we find flats. There are two names for the black keys. The key before D is D flat if you’re on D. (Db). Eb is the black key before E. If you’re on a key and play the key to the left, you’re going flat. If you are on G and then play the key to the left of G, you are playing G flat. If you’re on A and asked to play the key to the left of A, you play A flat. B flat is the key before B.
This is an easy way to think about flats on a piano keyboard. You are actually going down a half step (or semitone) on your keyboard, which makes the note flat. For example, if you are on B, the note before it is Bb because you went down a half step (semitone). On the other hand, if you go up a half step (or semitone), like from C to C# on your keyboard, the note becomes sharp. So sharp means you need to go up a half step, and flat means you need to go down a half step.
So, the five black keys that are flats are Db, which is right after C or before D, followed by Eb, Gb, Ab, and Bb.
The names of the 12 piano keys and the notes they play
Remember that there are sets of two and three black keys on the piano. There are 7 white keys that repeat, which means that depending on how many keys your keyboard has in total, 12 keys repeat over and over. Let’s start with the letter C. (before a set of 2 black keys). This would give you C, then C# or Db, D, D# or Eb, E, F, F# or Gb, G, G# or Ab, A, A# or Bb, B, and C. The piano or keyboard’s keys!
Another thing. You can also sharpen or flatten the white keys. Remember that the word “sharp” or the symbol “#” on your keyboard tells you to play the key to the right of that key, while the word “flat” tells you to play the key to the left of that key. So, you can also call the key after E “E#.” We’ve already seen that it’s F, but it can also be called E#. Why? Because you are playing the key to the right of E. It’s an extra half step above E. Also, there is B#, which piano for all review is the key to the right of B. So the same key that plays C can also play B#. Both B# and C are equivalent in terms of how they sound. There’s also Cb, which is half a step lower than C and plays the note B. There’s also Fb, which is a half step below F and plays the note E. So there are white keys for the notes B#, Cb, E#, and Fb.
I hope you now know how to write the names of the keys on a piano keyboard. Click here to find out more about the keys and notes of a piano.
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