The course › Unit 2: The notes of the keyboard
Lesson 10 of 72 · A to G, forward and backward, all over the keys
Music uses only the first seven letters of the alphabet: A B C D E F G. After G there’s no H: you start over at A, in a loop, like the days of the week.
Moving to the right, you go forward through the alphabet: C D E F G A B C… Moving to the left, you go backward: C B A G F E D C.
Listen to the scale go up and come back down, and say the name of each note.
Did you know?: Singers also name the notes with syllables: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti. They come from the monk Guido d’Arezzo (11th century), who took the first syllable of each line of a Latin hymn: Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La. “Ut” later became “Do”, and a seventh syllable, “Si”, was added (“Ti” in English). In France or Italy, these syllables are the note names!
Tip: Practice saying the alphabet backward, really fast: G F E D C B A. You’ll need it to read melodies that go down.
Find the neighboring note: just above (to the right) or just below (to the left), on the white keys.
The musical alphabet starts at A, but on the piano we usually start from C: C D E F G A B fits neatly around the black-key groups, and C is where the all-white-key scale begins.
The same letters also name the chords (C, G, Am…): you’ll see them above the falling notes and on song sheets.
C D E F G A B: one letter per white key, then it starts over at C.
Did you know?: The lowest key on a full-size piano is an A, the first letter of the alphabet. And the A above middle C is the reference for tuning instruments: it vibrates 440 times per second.
Each note is given by its letter. Find it from the black-key groups, and play it in any octave.
One minute to find as many notes as you can. Go fast, but aim true!