Learn

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.

A piano keyboard standing upright with a line running from each black key, the bold red one from C sharp 4, and the opening notes of Mary Had a Little Lamb sitting on those lines.

Stage 1: learn the map

Before the page, meet the keyboard. A standard modern piano has 88 keys: 52 white and 36 black. The black keys come in groups of two and three, all the way along. That pattern is your map, and it never changes.

Two octaves of piano keys, C4 to B5. The black keys come in groups of two and three. Every C, lit, is the white key just left of a group of two, and every F is just left of a group of three.CDEFGABCDEFGABtwothreetwothree
The black keys come in twos and threes. C is always just left of a two, F just left of a three.

Find a group of two black keys. The white key just to its left is C. Every C on the piano sits in the same spot, so once you can find one, you can find them all.

Stage 2: seven letters on repeat

White keys are named with the letters A to G. After G comes A again, a little higher. From one C to the next is an octave, and inside it are 12 keys in all, white and black, each a semitone (a half step) from the next. The pattern of keys and names then repeats.

One octave of the keyboard from middle C, C4, up to C5, with every key named. Each black key has two names, such as C sharp and D flat. The 12 keys from C4 to B4 make one octave.C4C♯D♭DD♯E♭EFF♯G♭GG♯A♭AA♯B♭BC512 keys, each a semitone apart: one octave
One octave, every key named. Each black key has two names: C♯ is the same key as D♭.

To tell the Cs apart, each one gets a number. Middle C, the fourth C from the left of an 88-key piano, is C4; the next C up is C5. This numbering traces back to a 1939 paper in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Some keyboards and apps call middle C C3 or C5 instead, so if a number looks off by one octave, that is why. On this site, middle C is always C4.

The whole piano: 88 keys, 52 white and 36 black, from A0 at the bottom to C8 at the top. Each C is labelled with its octave number, and middle C, C4, is lit.A0, the lowestC8, the highestC1C2C3C4middle CC5C6C7C8
All 88 keys, 52 white and 36 black. The octave number goes up by one at every C, so middle C is C4: the fourth C from the left.

Stage 3: sharps and flats

A sharp (♯) raises a note by a semitone, to the very next key on the right. A flat (♭) lowers it by a semitone, to the very next key on the left. The black key between C and D is both C♯ and D♭: one key, two names, depending on which way the music is heading.

Four white keys, C D E F, with the black key between C and D. An arrow from C to the black key reads sharp, one key to the right; an arrow from D reads flat, one key to the left. Both land on the same key: C sharp is D flat. Between E and F there is no black key.CDEFC♯: one key rightD♭: one key leftC♯ and D♭: one key, two namesE to F: no black key between
A sharp moves up one key, a flat down one. C♯ and D♭ are one key with two names.

Between E and F, and between B and C, there is no black key, so those white keys are already a semitone apart.

Stage 4: how standard notation shows a note

Standard sheet music writes notes on a staff of five lines. A clef at the start says which notes the lines stand for: the treble clef is a G clef, marking the G above middle C, and the bass clef is an F clef, marking the F below middle C. Each line and each space is a white-key letter, and a sharp or flat sign moves a note onto a black key.

That works, but it means a black key has no place of its own on the staff. You have to remember the signs, including the ones set once at the start of a line.

To learn every line and space, see treble clef notes and bass clef notes, and for rhythm, time signatures and the rest of the page, how to read sheet music.

Stage 5: how keyboard staff shows a note

In keyboard staff, the notation on this site, every line is a black key. The bold red line is C♯4, the black key just above middle C, and a dotted grey line marks each place where two white keys sit side by side with no black key between them (E and F, B and C). A white-key note is an oval in a gap or beside a dotted line, so the page looks like the keyboard turned on its side. Both hands share the one staff: notes with stems up are for the right hand, stems down for the left.

Turning the keyboard a quarter turn so the lowest key is at the bottom. On the right, the same octave stands upright, and a line runs from each black key: the bold red line comes from C sharp 4, and dotted lines mark where E meets F and B meets C. Middle C sits just below the red line.CDEFGABCAs you see itturnC4C♯4
Keyboard staff is the keyboard turned on its side. Each line is a black key; the red one is C♯4, just above middle C.

Because each line is a real key, there is nothing extra to remember: no clefs and no sharps or flats to carry in your head. Find the bold red line and you can find everything else. The How to read page lets you press a key and see exactly where its note sits.

Your first reading quest

  1. Open the How to read page and press C, then C♯, then D. Watch where each note lands.
  2. Open Mary Had a Little Lamb (Easy). The right hand uses only C4, D4, E4 and G4.
  3. Press Play and follow the highlighted notes with your eyes.
  4. Now play it yourself, with Listen on, and see every note turn green.
The first 4 bars of Mary Had a Little Lamb (Easy) in keyboard staffC3441234EDCDEEEDDDEGGCCGC
Open the full pieceThe first four bars of Mary Had a Little Lamb. Press Play and watch each note light as it sounds. The right hand uses just C4, D4, E4 and G4.

Ready for more? The easiest level is full of short tunes, and how to play your first piano song walks you through one from start to finish.

Try these next

Picture credits

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against these.