The black and white things you might call buttons on your piano are called “keys”. On some keyboards, they might be 61, 76 or 88; but they are just a re-occurrence of twelve particular keys.

See the illustration below:

Lool; that’s from my old piano that I bought from Alaba international market oo.

So We are concentrating on 5 black keys and 7 white keys. In total they become 12. So the notes I told you about in lesson one:

C  D  E  F  G  A  B  C

Are the white keys. I remember I told you that those notes above have some friends that they are hiding in their rooms, those friends are the black keys.

What are the names of those black keys?  Together they are called “Enharmonics”. Because they have the same sound but different names.

What are their individual names?

Before I tell you, let me first introduce you to sharps(#) and Flats(b).

For now, let me define a sharp as a note forward

And a flat as a note backwards.

Look at this picture below again:

There are five black keys;

the first one is called C# because we are moving a note forward from C,

It can also be called Db because we are moving a note backward from D.

The second black key is called D# because we are moving a note forward from D,

It can also be called Eb because we are moving a note backward from E.

The third black key is called F# because we are moving a note forward from F,

It can also be called called Gb because we are moving a note backward from G

The fourth black key is called G# because we are moving a note forward from G,

It can also be called Ab because we are moving a note backward from A

The fifth black key is called A# because we are moving a note forward from ,

It can also be called Bb because we are moving a note backward from B.

Tip: sharp goes forward by one note, flat goes backward by one note too.

I hope you now understand the way the black keys are named.

Now that we know the names of all the keys, lets move on. Please don’t forget these names because you would need them every single time you would be playing.

You might be asked, on what key are you playing on? You should be able to tell them whether it is C#(which is my favorite key) or any other key.

Next – Lesson 4: Singing and playing on different keys

In English language we have alphabets A-Z

In music we have alphabets A-G too; please don’t ask me why, because that’s how I met it in this world

Also In English, these alphabets are called letters

In music they are called notes; I hope you are following me oo, I’m trying to make a point here

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  A

The letters above are the notes that we have in music, but all these notes have some notes they are hiding in their rooms, I would come back to that later. Let me continue to make you understand my previous point.

In English a combination of letters form words. In music a combination of notes form “Chords”.

When you are in church and you hear the more than two or three notes at the same time, that thing he played is called a chord; or maybe when you are listening to a guitarist singing and playing at the same time, the sound that comes for the when he strikes three or more or even all the strings at the same time is called a chord.

Now let us combine notes together to form a chord.

C E G

That is a chord, remember that in English language, you don’t just pick random letters and join them together and say you’ve formed a word, the word might not exist because there are rules guiding it.

That is exactly how it is when we are talking about chords, there are rules guiding the way we form our chords, we would come back to them later.

Now if we combine correct words in English language, we would have a sentence. But in music if we combine chords we would have a “Chord progression”.

Look at this illustration below:

The    guitar    is     mine   =    sentence

What we have above is a combination of words to give us a sentence.

A C E        F A D          C E G        G B D     =    chord progression (it can work for Asa’s jailer)

LAh           fah              doh          soh

Now the combination of the chords above gave us a chord progression, as it goes on and on like that.

That chord progression can work for Asa’s song “Jailer”.

s  l  l

l  f  f

f  d  d

d  s  s

Now for a little diversion, so you would understand the last section well, the letters

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  A

l   t    d   r  m  f  s   l

the “ l t d r m f s l “ are called solfa notations, they are used to sing the notes of music.

Tonic solfa is a technique for sightsinging, It is a system of naming notes of a musical scale by syllables which are the sounds the notes will produced if they are played on a musical instrument.

 They are normally arranged as

 “ d r m f s l t d”.

The notes and solfas are numbered 1-8 like this:

C             D             E              F              G             A             B             C

D             r              m             f                 s              l               t              d

1              2              3              4              5              6              7              8

 So the illustration is there for those that want to sing it or for those that prefer to learn with the use of solfas, especially Nigerians; we like the use of solfas too oo, I’m also guilty of that too. We would learn more about solfa notations in later lessons.

Rhythm: We can define rhythm as the beat of the songs that We dance to. The rhythm could be high-life, warror, hip-hop, juju music e.t.c

Melody: It is defined as the tune of a song that people hear and make them recognize the song, When you are in the church and the Hymn is about to be sang, the pianist will first play the hymn so the congregation will remember before everybody will sing along. What the pianist plays is the melody of the song.

Harmony: The Harmony is the combination of notes to form chords which will now accompany the rhythm and melody to form beautiful music.

So the left hand plays Harmony, the right hand plays the Melody, and the drummer gives us the rhythm.

Notes of Music are

C  D  E F G A  B  C

Chords are a combination of notes

Chord progression are a combination of chords in a sequential order

Solfa notations are meant to sing notes of music

Next: Lesson – Lesson 3: Keys of the Piano

A piano is a musical instrument that is meant to accompany a singer or a group of singers to bring forth pleasant music. A piano is made up of black and white keys, and a pedal to sustain the sound produced.

A piano is pretty expensive today; not everybody might be able to afford a piano today, that is why we have an alternative of the electronic piano keyboard that is powered by electricity. They perform the same functions, the electronic piano keyboard has many functions and added advantages. Even with all that the piano is still more expensive. Most of the time only rich men have it in their mansions, you don’t just see them anywhere except in very large congregations. They are big and heavy, that’s why in a particular episode of tom and Jerry, a piano fell on Tom and for the first time in that cartoon’s history Tom died and the story continues. Below is a picture of a Grand Piano.

In your church I’m very sure an electronic piano keyboard is what is used. Different brands of keyboards have different numbers of keys, some have 66, 88 or more; but those numbers do not matter. we are basically concerned with 12 keys on the piano, these 12 keys are repeated on the piano as many times as the producers want them to be. If the 12 keys are repeated 6 times, the keyboard is called a 6 octave keyboard. Below you would find a picture of my electronic keyboard that I used in learning to play. It’s a 5 octave keyboard that my choir master bought for me in Alaba international market. I payed him about 8,000 naira or so for it. It’s quite cheap and of a low quality and it is programmed in a language that I do not know; maybe Chinese or something, Alaba things naw. Lol.