Piano

Piano By Jessica S

The piano has fifty-two white keys and thirty-six black keys. Total it up, 88 keys. A black key can be a sharp or a flat. If it's a sharp, for example A sharp, that means it's one half note above A. If it's a flat, for example A flat, that means its one half note below A. However, white keys are very different. Only the notes E, F, B, or C can be a sharp or a flat. But, you would usually use C instead of B sharp, or E instead of F flat. In an octave, there are seven notes (you play eight) C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and it comes back to C. If you play the example, that would be a scale. The black keys don't count because they are half notes, not whole notes. F to G would be one whole note. F to F sharp would be one half note down. When you're playing a piece, there usually are three or more kinds of notes. The simplest one is the quarter note. It gets one beat. There are also half notes' beats, two beats. The longest one is called a whole note which consists of four beats. It looks like a donut hole. If it were 4/4 time, which means there are four beats to a measure and each quarter note gets one beat, you would hold the whole note down for the whole measure. A measure is something in pieces where you divide notes into smaller sections. If the time signature is 4/4, there would be four notes in a measure. There are also eighth notes. Each eighth note is half a quarter note or one eighth of a 4/4 time signature. Another common note would be a dotted quarter note. It's one and a half beats because the dot takes half the quarter note's beat. You would count it as one and two. Two beats would be one and two and, so a dotted quarter note would be counted as one and two if you were counting the beats out loud. Also, a dotted half note would be three beats because a half note is two beats and half for two is one, so two plus one equals three which means a dotted half note takes up three beats. Sometimes in a piece of music, there are rests. Maybe there will be a quarter note in 4/4 time. That means there would be three beats left! You would then put a quarter rest three times. You could also write a quarter rest and a half rest because a quarter rest is one beat of silence and a half rest is two beats of silence. If you come to a whole measure with no notes and it's 4/4 time which means four beats in a measure, you would see a whole rest. And of course, it takes up four beats. Finally, an eighth rest is half a quarter rest of silence. Sometimes you come across a piece that says "//p//" which means piano. Piano means to play quietly or softly. You could then press the middle pedal with your foot. It will soften the piano for you so that when you press a note, its plays quieter. You could also just press softly on the keys. You could also find an "//f"// which is short for forte. That means to play loud, so you would press hard on the notes. Usually, it's used to make the piece more lively or/and expressive. If you need to make notes longer, you would press the right pedal with your foot. It will make your notes hold or make it longer even after you lift your finger(s) off the note(s). Some songs have a double bar line which looks like two lowercase L's the first one thin, the second thick. That means it's the end of the song. If you see something that looks like it, but with an extra two lined up (vertically, on left) somewhere in the song, it means to repeat from the beginning. Sometimes, if there's a repeat sign with the dots on the right and after some measures, one on the left, that means to start at the one on the right, and end at the one on the left. The piano is a fun instrument to play. It requires a lot of skill and knowledge to play, but it’s a good instrument to learn.