How to explain black and white keys on a piano keyboard

Question

I was going over quite a lot of answers that are already posted and I've figured out that I could ask this question anew. My perspective is that I have melodies coming to my head and I record them with my voice. I will be learning music theory, piano and Ableton Live.

There is basically C, D, E, F, G, A and H on a piano keyboard and there is these black keys, which are Sharps / Flats. I am wondering how any melody that can come to my head (I have like 12,000 recorded so far, for like 4 months) translates into this. Any of them can be always played on a piano keyboard? Are sharps / flats some secondary type of notes, or is this something like 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 (12 sounds of equal importance) just layed out like this on a keyboard. And with this, there is no more sounds, they dont exist? So what exists in the end is these 12 and different octaves, which are on the keyboard (low to high). So there could be more octaves but no more than 12 of these sounds in each set? Or there can be, can there be like 15 or 17 or 30-something making up an octave? Do these 12 sounds translate somehow in any actual value (like Hertz)?

Just trying to understand - connect the music that comes or may come to my head with this piano keyboard. This is just "engraved in stone", that's how this is and it cant be different or what this is? I've always had an impressions that white keys are the main ones and the black keys are somehow secondary ones. I was watching some vids on Youtube and reading answers from here, but I don't get it yet.

Answer 1

Your question is very broad. It sounds like you are asking 'how does music work?' That can't be answered in a Q & A forum, but here are a few things I suggest you look into...

The basic Western music system uses 12 tones.

All 12 tones are called the chromatic scale. That will be all the keys on the keyboard.

But most music focuses on 7 of those tones called the diatonic scale.

On the keyboard the basic diatonic scale is all the white keys. Depending on which tone you start the scale you will get either a major scale or a minor scale (or one of several modes.)

In practice the diatonic scale mixes in the other 5 notes from the chromatic scale. Those will be the black keys on the keyboard. Melody and harmony then is a mixture of diatonic and chromatic sounds.

Regarding the pattern of black and white keys and this diatonic/chromatic system you must realize these elements can be transposed to 12 different starting notes. So, all the white keys on the piano are the diatonic scale. If you start that on C, you get the C major scale. But you can transpose that major scale to a different starting note like Db. When you do that the sequence of black and white keys will change, but the pattern will still be diatonic. The relative relationships stay the same. In the beginning this can be hard to understand, but it's a critically important aspect of music theory.

---

EDIT re. the scientific background.

This is in no way complete, but read these articles about why some pitch intervals seem more significant that others...

• The harmonic series, this is more the acoustical science.
• the Chord of Nature, this is more of a historic perspective but related to acoustics.
• pitch class and octave equivalency, this is combination of acoustics, culture, and psychology.

Also, here are a few articles about musical naming and labeling...

• Helmholtz and Scientific pitch notation, here is a page with both systems labeling the piano keys
• intervals and their qualities
• degrees of the scale

That's a lot of reading and a lot to thing about! It's probably best to stop at this point and give yourself time to digest all of those ideas. It's important to note there are philosophical debates on many of these topics. Don't approach them as absolute truths. Remember music is art. Beauty does not need to be reconciled with the harmonic series and such!

Answer 2

These are all question under the subject of Music Theory. If you're writing music in the Western Tradition, then 12 notes per octave will usually be sufficient. Your keyboard controller has a pitch bender that can get subtle pitches in between the notes of the keys.

If you're just starting out transcribing your own melodies, then an important early step should be determining if it has a Major or Minor kind of sound. Use your "do-re-mi" to find how the melody lays on the scale and if "do" is the tonal center then it's major, or if "la" is the tonal center then it's minor. The tonal center of a melody can usually be found if you sing the melody and play a bass note on the keyboard that sounds good with the last note of the melody. The bass note should feel like "home" if you have the right one.

If use the key of C for Major melodies and use the key of A minor for Minor melodies then you can (mostly, usually) stay on the white keys.

Bon chance!

Answer 3

Oner a long period of time, Western music has been adjusted as far as note pitch is concerned, so each octave (between any note and the one in the same place to the left or right) is divided into twelve. It's called 12tet, and is a little bit of a compromise for some notes, which can sound a touch out of tune. But it now means, on piano at least, that the same tune can be played in different keys and sound pretty good. Older tunings meant tunes sounded best in one particular key - on a well-tuned instrument - but sounded pretty awful in other keys.

The layout of pianos is more for convenience. A piano could have all 88 notes spread out left to right, but only people with exceptionally long arms would be able to play it. So, it's compressed into two layers - black and white keys. It would be ludicrous to have them alternating: you wouldn't be able to pinpoint which notes are which.

It just happens that the way they are placed gives key C an easy one to find. Starting on that C, the diatonic notes are in a particular pattern: TTSTTTS. That's T=tone, S=semitone spaces between successive notes.The black keys are just as important, they're for other musical keys.Let's start at E. Using TTSTTTS, those notes are now E F# G# A B C# D#, back to the next E.

There is no direct relationship between notes, keys on a piano and frequencies. If you are mathematically/scientifically minded, you can delve into the ramifications, but I don't think it will help with understanding what's going on, except to know that every octave is split into 12 equal parts. Taking A=440Hz, and its octave being twice that at 880Hz, divide the difference by 12, there are your note frequencies! Maybe that helps - I doubt it, somehow!

Back to your (many) tunes. By playing C E G before you try to play a tune, it will centre the ears on the key of C. Search amongst the white keys, find the appropriate start note, and away you go, using probably only white keys. If you play, for example, E G# B before you start, the ears are going to be in the key of E. Now, you may well have to use up to and including four black keys.

For simplicity's sake, I've only discussed diatonic notes - which a lot of tunes use exclusively - they're the seven specific to any key. In their easiest to understand form, they're the white keys - constituting key C on piano.

You ask about any other ways into which notes can be split or ordered. Yes, but to Western ears they often sound 'out of tune'. Oriental/Indian music uses different scales, which play notes that I call 'in the cracks' - which is where they could be found on a piano. Not quite as high as one key, but lower than the next... Although this is academically interesting, it may not help your quest to play your tunes on a piano.