Ebony & Ivory

At first glance the keys of the piano look complex, but chances are you can already see a pattern emerging. Black keys are in groups of twos and threes. You can use these groups as signposts, to navigate your way to any other note with ease. I’ll demonstrate with the note C. C’s are always located to the left of black key pairs. How many C’s are there on your piano? Take a moment to work it out.

What’s the difference between all of the notes we call C? The answer is pitch. Some sound high, some sound low. Others sound somewhere in between. The C in the middle of the piano is called middle C. The distance between a C and the next C to its left or right is called an octave (8ve).

You’re going to try an exercise now to familiarise yourself with all of the notes of the piano. You can use any finger you like, on your right or left hand. Don’t be afraid to try a few or all of your fingers. Each time you play a note say it out loud, to drill the names of notes.

Next find all of the F’s. F’s are always to the left of black keys grouped in three. Then find all of the D’s, always in between black note pairs. Now all the A’s...

Time for the black notes. Did you know black notes have two names? When we move from C to the next key up, we call that black note C sharp (C# for short). When we move from D to the next key down, we call that same black note D flat (aka Db). Can you find all the C#’s? All the Db’s? (Gotcha, they’re the same keys). How about all the F#’s? The Gb’s? Now you’re getting it.

Play every note, white and black, from one C up to the next C (one octave). You can use either hand and any of your fingers. Think exploration rather than perfection and say every note you play out loud: sharps on the way up, flats on the way down.

Can you do two octaves? How about four? Notice how every note is the same distance apart, the smallest step possible in western music (things get a little more interesting in the East but that’s a story for another day). The distance you’ve identified is called a semitone (S). Playing semitones in order like you’ve been doing is called a chromatic scale. Let’s break that word down. Chromatic indicates movement in semitones, while scale just means ordered notes.

Time to choose: When you’re confident that you know the names of all twelve notes of the piano it’s time to choose the starting point of your piece, your ‘root’ note (R), your anchor. If this is your first time reading this book, you may want to use a white note as your root, or use C like I do in the example below. If you’ve taken this journey with me before or have some experience with the piano already, choose any note, white or black.

Turn to your worksheet. Write in your root note under R on the Major Key table. If you choose a black note, write its flat (not sharp) name. Here I’ve used the example C.

Time to choose: When your time is up choose another note to improvise with for one minute. You can repeat this as many times as you like.