You are opportune to sit in front of a piano and you are carried away with all the keys (musical notes) you see on the piano. You so desire to start performing wonder with your finger, playing your favorites songs but you get stuck with not knowing what to play.

The good news is you can start to play your favorites songs in no time if you follow our proven methods. We have developed series of easy to understand lessons that will take your piano playing to a whole new level of professionalism. You heard me right.

How to Identify Musical Notes on The Piano

Playing the piano is not as difficult as you think. If you follow through our lessons carefully with practice, you will be good to go to play your favorite songs on the piano.

Do the piano keys look like an alien to you? Don’t be scared by those series of white and black keys that are repeated all over the piano.

In this music lesson, I will be showing you what a musical note is and how you can identify the white and black musical notes on the piano easily.

Now let's get ready to introduce the musical notes on the piano.

Letters Used in Music to Represent Musical Notes

There are 7 letters used in music to name musical notes. 

These letters are A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Any letter apart from this, is not in music. For instance, Key H, I, J, …. is not in music.

On the piano, there are white and black keys.

Look at the piano diagram below.

Identification of Musical Notes On the Piano

You have seen a piano and being confused how piano players can just master a lot of notes. It's no magic to play this way. You just need to understand that in piano, there are repetition of alphabets.

Let's try to break the piano keys (notes) down to smaller chunks so that you can understand how things work.

We are going to count the number of white notes from C to B. How many are they altogether?

Do you notice there are 7 white notes altogether?

Great job to detect that.

Now let's count the number of black notes within the range of the octave.

You will notice that there are 5 black notes (keys).

So let's add up 7 white notes and 5 black notes, that will give us 12 musical notes altogether.

This 12 notes are repeated over and over again.

So in general we can say, there are 12 musical notes or 12 keys used in music to represent sound. 

Now that you understand the keys used in music. 

Let us see how we can identify this musical notes one after the other.

Do you see that there is a repeating pattern?

The 12 musical notes are repeated all over the piano. 

Groups of Black notes or Key on the Piano

Do you notice that there is a group of two black notes and group of three black notes? Look at the image below to see what I'm talking about. Torch the group of two black keys and group of three black keys.

How to Identify Musical Note C on the Piano

The very first thing we need to do is to identify the key of C on the piano. You remember we have 5 black keys. Can you see that there are 2 groups of black keys and there are also 3 groups of black keys apart. 

To identify the musical note of C on the piano, Do the following :

Locate the group of two black notes.

Touch the group of two black keys with two of your fingers.

Do you see the white key before the first one of the two black keys?

Touch the white key that is the Note C we are looking for.

Get to know Other Musical Notes Apart from Note C

Do you still remember that there are 7 letters used in music which are A,B, C, D, E, F, G?

You now know how to locate your Note C on the piano. Let us now locate other notes on the piano. It's very simple.

Have a look at the piano diagram once again.

In the diagram above, our starting note is C. The note immediately after C will be D followed by E, then F and so on. When you get to G, you get to start saying the letters from Note A, then B and then C. There is no H in music or any other letter apart from ABCDEFG used in music.

Knowing Your Finger Number

We have spent some quality time learning how to identify the musical notes on the piano. The next thing up our sleeve is to know how to position the fingers on the piano using the right fingers numbers Look at the finger diagram below.

The thumb finger represents finger 1.

The index finger represents finger 2.

The middle finger represents finger 3.

The ring finger represents finger 4.

The pinkie finger represents finger 5.

Hand Position on the Piano

Let us learn how to play the first five notes on the piano. As you can see from the piano diagram below. The starting note is C.

Place your finger 1 on C.

Place your finger 2 on D.

Place your finger 3 on E.

Place your finger 4 on F.

Place your finger 5 on G.

Position your hand as if you are holding an egg in your palm

How to Build Your Fingering on the Piano

What do we mean by fingering?

Fingering is a proper way of arranging your fingers on the piano so as to play musical notes smoothly.

Why do you need to know your finger number?

It helps you to play the piano the right way. It build up ability in your fingers to play notes smoothly.

Although you need to always practice some exercise to help you improve in your fingering. We will get to that later.

Mastering the right fingering is a sure way to help you build confidence and do amazing things with your fingers. 

Fingering Exercise To Improve Your Piano Skill

Fingering Exercise that can help beginner Play Piano Smoothly (you can use this as a post) or 

Beginners Fingering Exercise One To Play Musical Notes

For this beginning exercise, you will position your right five fingers on the first five notes and play from C to G then play back down to C. 

You can start playing this exercise on a very slow tempo. If you can play smoothly to time (tempo), then you can increase your speed of play a bit. As you get improved, you can keep increasing your speed. You can play this exercise continuously for 5 - 10 minutes without stopping. 

C D E F G F E D C

Playing Fingering Exercise One using Legato

Legato means to play smoothly. The notes will be played without any break in between.

Playing Fingering Exercise using Staccato

Staccato means to play the notes shorter than normal. In Staccato, notes are played with breaks in between.

Now that you have been able to play the exercise with your right hand fingers. Let us try the beginning exercise on the left hand to see how the left hand fingers too can get improved.

Beginners Fingering Exercise Two

For this fingering exercise two, you will first position your five fingers on the

C D C D, D E D E, E F E F, F G F G, E F E F, D E D E, C D C D

Beginners Fingering Exercise Three

C D C D, C E C E, C F C F, C G C G, C F C F, C E C E, C D C D

Beginners Fingering Exercise Four

C E D F, E G E F, D E C

Beginners Fingering Exercise Five

C D E C D E, D E F D E F, E F G E F G, G F E G F E, F E D F E D, E D C E D C

Beginners Fingering Exercise Six

C C C C C C C C, D D D D D D D D, E E E E E E E E, F F F F F F F F, G G G G G G G G, F F F F F F F F, E E E E E E E E, D D D D D D D D, C C C C C C C C 

Beginners Fingering Exercise Seven

C G C G, C F C F, C E C E, C D C D

We do hope you have a good time learning how to identify the musical notes on the piano. Feel free to let us know how it has helped you.