Learn
Short, friendly guides for grown-up beginners. Read one, then go and play.
- How to read piano notes
Reading music is a game of matching marks on a page to keys under your fingers. Here is the whole rulebook, one stage at a time.
- Your first piano song
The first song you finish is the moment the piano stops being furniture and starts being yours. Let us get you there.
- How adults learn piano
Starting piano as a grown-up is not a late start. It is a different start, and in some ways a better one.
- How to practise piano
Practice is not about clocking hours. It is a game of small wins, and here is how to rack them up.
- Piano keys and notes
Eighty-eight keys look like a lot. They are really one small pattern, repeated. Learn the pattern and the whole keyboard is yours.
- Treble clef notes
The treble clef notes are the ones your right hand usually plays on the piano. Learn five lines and four spaces, and you can name every note on the staff.
- Bass clef notes
The bass clef notes are the low ones, mostly played by your left hand. Here is how to read bass clef, line by line and space by space.
- How to read sheet music
Learning how to read sheet music means learning a handful of symbols. Here are the basics of how to read music for piano, one at a time, with standard notation and this site’s keyboard staff side by side.
- How many keys does a piano have?
How many keys does a piano have? A standard modern piano has 88: 52 white keys and 36 black keys, from A0 at the bottom to C8 at the top.
- How to read keyboard staff
Press a key and see exactly where its note sits on the staff.
- Piano keyboard chart
Every key labeled, and a notes chart for both clefs. Free to print.
Looking for who wrote the music? Meet the composers.