Beginning Piano: Music Alphabet and Finding Keys

In this short lesson for beginning piano, we are talking about the Music Alphabet and how to use it to find keys (letters or notes) on a piano keyboard. The music alphabet uses the first 7 letters of the English alphabet in the same order (A B C D E F G) to name pitches. Pitch describes how high or low a note sounds.

Piano Keys

You may notice that a piano has more than 7 keys. It actually has 88! To solve the problem of having more keys than letters, we will simply repeat those same seven letters. After we reach the last letter of our pattern (G), we start back over at A. The music alphabet repeats this cycle over and over.

Notes on a Piano

Now that you know the letters, or notes, and pattern of the music alphabet, let’s talk about how the notes align with the keys of the piano. The easiest notes to find on a key board are C and F. To find these notes, start by looking at the groups of black keys on your keyboard. You may notice the black keys are arranged in alternating groups of 2 or 3. Here are two ways to find A using the black keys.

Finding C on the Piano

Option 1: Locate a group of 2 black keys. To help you locate the groups, they’ve been edited to bright blue in the images above and below. The white key directly to the left of this group of keys is a C.

Using C to Find A in the Piano

Now we are going to work backwards through the alphabet (using only the white keys) to find A. We know the letter before C is B, therefore the pitch below C is also B. The letter before B is A, therefore the pitch below B is also A.

Finding F on the Piano

Option 2: Locate a group of 3 black keys. To help you locate the groups, they’ve been edited to bright green in the images above and below. The white key directly to the left of this group of keys is an F.

Using F to Find A on the Piano

Now we are going to work forwards through the alphabet (using only the white keys) to find A. We know the letter after F is G, therefore the pitch above F is also G. The letter above G is A, therefore the pitch above G is also A.

Notes on a Piano

Practice finding F or C on your own using these two techniques. Once that becomes easy, expand your skills to finding other notes by working up or down through the music alphabet as you move up or down the white keys.