Notes on the Piano

The Piano is a soundbox with strings that play through hammers activated when you press the keys.

The electronic keyboard has the same key arrangement, but the sounds are produced electronically.

The following chart shows the names of the notes on a piano/keyboard:

C ("Do/Ut") is the first white note, to the left of any set of two black notes.

All the rest progress alphabetically, except, A ("La"), and, B ("Si").

The first 7 whites, plus 5 blacks, constitute one octave of 12 notes.

Subsequent octaves have the same notes, doubling the frequencies as you go up (to the right), and halving as you go down (to the left).

Pianos / keyboards are used melodically, to play melodies, and, rhythmically, to accompany songs.

Almost all modern pianos have 88 keys (7 octaves, plus a minor third), from A0 to C8.

Small studio ("gig") pianos have 65 keys. Studio "MIDI controller" keyboards may have as few as 25 keys.

A4 is the middle A, key 49, at 440 Hz.

To produce any other note frequency, the following formula applies:

In this formula, f(49) produces 440 Hz.

The following chart (taken from the Wikipedia) shows the notes produced by each piano key, compared against other instruments (guitar, violin, bass, etc):