Basic Keyboard 101: Musical Terms To Know

The keyboard as you see in front of you, is made up of white and black keys which run from left to right. If you look closely, you would notice a set of white and black keys which have a repeated pattern over and over again. In this lesson, we will explain the terms used by keyboard players.

OCTAVE: This consists of 7 white keys and 5 black keys arranged in a particular order. When you play a key from the left side and end up on the same key in the right, you have just played an interval which is called an octave. The keys are arranged in such a way that low notes are on the left and high notes on the right so if you played the octave we talked about above, the same key you started with should sound higher.

Every black and white key is higher in pitch than the one before it.

HALF STEP: To play a half step, play a key and play the one immediately next to it. For example, play a C note, then play D flat/C sharp.

FULL STEP: As noticed before, there are sets of black and white keys arranged in a pattern. To play a full step, play a white key, omit the black key next to it and play the next white key. For example, play a C note, omit the D flat/C sharp and play the next white note which is D.

Step by step, you will begin playing your favourite Singapore songs after this keyboard lessons.

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