Lesson Eight: Spotting C and F on the keyboard

Next in the series of short, rote-memory posts on music theory:

In my view, one absolutely must be able to locate the notes C and F on a piano keyboard.

You don't need to learn to play the piano. You don't absolutely have to know any of the other notes by sight. But to really have a grip on this, to be able to navigate and to connect things up, then it's essential to do whatever it takes to see the C key and think "C" and then see the "F" key and think "F."

Honestly, it would be worth your time to spend a whole day doing that. If you don't have any kind of music keyboard at your house, then you could print out an image of you and put that on the table. Or even draw a section of keyboard with a Sharpie on the back of an envelope. It's learned by reinforcement. You stare at eh white key to the left of any group of two black keys and you put your finger on it and say "C." Same with "F" which is a white key to the left of any group of three black keys.

Depending on how long your keyboard or pretend keyboard is, you may two, three, or four C's and F's and they look just the samne. C is the first white key to the left of the pair of black keys, F is the first white key to the left of the triplet set of black keys.

Why two notes, C and F? You can find a touch-point more easily that way than to count 7 notes over from C if you are as far as you can get from it. One day the view of the keyboard will coalesce in your mind, and you'll be able to see it all together without counting.

Why the keyboard? It makes it easier to count, which I just said you won't need to do. Well, you won't have to count to locate individual keys, but when you learn structure in music, you do need to count up and down a lot. And if you get stuck, you can imagine the keyboard and then you'll figure out where you are.

Next time: White keys get into trouble when left alone with each other.