Piano keyboard
The piano keyboard is a row of 88 white and black keys: keys on the left sound low, keys on the right high. The black keys come in groups of two and three, and the pattern repeats along the whole keyboard.
Each key sounds a little higher than its neighbour on the left. The white keys are named with seven letters, C D E F G A B, repeating every seven keys. The black-key groups are your landmarks: the white key just left of a group of two is always C, and the one just left of a group of three is F.
The distance from one C to the next is an octave. The whole keyboard spans a little over seven octaves, from the lowest A (A0) to the highest C (C8). The C nearest the middle of the keyboard is middle C, where beginners start reading music.
The black keys have no names of their own: they borrow them from their white neighbours with a sharp or a flat, so one key is both C♯ and D♭. From any key to the very next one is a half step.
What it sounds like
The left side of the keyboard sounds low and full, the right side high and bright. Two C’s an octave apart sound like the same note, one higher than the other.
Where it is taught: the studio’s interactive textbook, chapter 1, “The keyboard and your first notes”.