Key signature is the number of sharps and flats a key has for us to easily identify it. When you look at a musical piece, you would find out that at the very beginning of the piece you would see series or a single sharp(s) or flat(s). They are there for you to determine the key the piece is written on. Look at an example in the picture above.

Those two sharps there tells whoever wants to interprete the piece the key of the song, so how does the circle of fifths and fourths help us to do this:

How do you determine the key signature of a song using thecircle of 4^ths  and 5^ths

The left hand side of the clock are the flats, while the right hand side are the sharps:

Therefore according to the diagram

G = #

D = ##

A = ###

E = ####

B = ##### or bbbbbbb

F# = ###### or bbbbbb

Db = ####### or bbbbb

Ab = bbbb

Eb = bbb

Bb = bb

F = b

C = natural

Forget the fancy stars in the image oo.

The image above is called “Circle of 5ths” when moving in clockwise direction and “Circle of 4ths” when moving anti-clockwisely.

It would help you to remember many key things in music but here I will only tell you how it helps you build your interval knowledge of perfect 5ths and 4ths.

From C to G is a fifth while going backward from G to C on this circle is a fourth interval.

Another instance,from F# to Db is a fifth while backward from Db to F# is a fourth.

It’s the same thing counting two and half tones for 4th interval while counting three and half tones for 5th interval but this clock or circle will help you to remember easily without counting anything.

Just look at it like a multiplication table that you use when you want to solve simple mathematics.

First of all a scale is a sequence of notes played one after the other

So a chromatic scale

C   C#   D   D#   E   F   F#   G   G#   A   A#   B   C

d     de   r    re    m   fa   fe     s   ze     l    le     ti   d      —–      solfa notes of a chromatic scale

Interval is the distance between two notes, they can be defined by tones and semitones

Minor 3^rd (m3) = 3 semitones from the root note

Major 3^rd(M3) = 4 semitones from the root note

Perfect 4^th (P4) = 5 semitones from the root note

Perfect 5^th (P5) = 7 semitones from the root note

Diminished 5^th (flat 5) = 6 semitones from the root note

Augmented 5^th (sharp 5) = 8 semitones from the root note

Octave (P8 or perfect 8^th) = 12 semitones from the root note

Keep these terms, they would be used to interpret a lot of formulas that I would be showing you(Lesson 11: Introduction to Chords) in the future, so its better you write them down in your note.

Have you ever been in a choir rehearsal and the music director will tell the pianist to bring down the key to a lower one( in other words change the key) because it is too high for the singer.

So from the key of A, the pianist could change it to the key of F.

What does this tell us?

It tells us that a song can be sung on 12 different keys.

So as a pianist, you should learn to play on all the keys of the piano.

For a start I recommend that you first learn all you need to learn on a particular key that you choose. Some people might choose C, but don’t choose C; choose something else; especially a key that has a lot of black notes.

I started with C#, and I enjoy playing on C#. After you’ve learnt all you need to learn in this tutorials, then you can start practicing on other keys. Make sure you practice other keys ooo.

Most of us would later be exposed to the art of transposing. Transposing is a feature on your electronic piano keyboard that enables you to play other keys on the key you are very familiar with.

You might be called to play in a church, and lo and behold when you get there, you would be given a piano that doesn’t have the piano feature and the keys would be hard to press. Mehn, you’re in deep water. J.

Let me encourage you by telling you that, you would get better at this as time goes on.

TO find the key of a song, you must have a reference point. This reference point depends on your hearing ability.

This video below illustrates how to find the key of a song on the piano:

 Most songs start with Doh and ends with Doh. Some, especially minors start with lah and end with lah

Keep that in your mind ooo.

 A song like baba, eshey oo baba, eshey oo baba, awa dupe baba; it ends with doh.

So whenever they are singing that song, sing it fast to the end and say the doh out loud so you can hear your self, then find that particular sound you said with your mouth on the piano.

If it happenes that the sound  is on the key of F#, then the key of the song is F#.

What about a song that starts and ends with lah; “awesome God” is an example of such songs.

Awesome God, mighty God, We give you praise, awesome God. You are highly lifted up, awesome God…….and so on and so forth.

The song ends with lah, so whenever they are singing the song in the church, try to sing it fast to the end and say the lah, then find the sound you are singing out on the piano, once you get it, trace it to the doh.

Once you get the doh of the song, that will be the key of the song. If the doh falls to the key of G, then the song is sung in the key of G.

Now I know the question in your mind is:

How do I get the Doh when I know the Lah?

That question will lead us into deriving our major scale

First of all a scale is a sequence of notes played one after the other

This questions brings us to something we call Tones and

Tones and semitones can be likened to what we call Wholenote and half note

So,
Tone = whole-note

  Semitone = Half-note

Tone =  T

Semi-tone = ST

Whole-note = W

Half-note =  H

Tones, semitones, Wholenote and half note are all distances on the piano.

A semitone distance is the distance of one note to the next immediate one e.g C – Db, E-F e.t.c

A tone distance is double the distance of a semitone e.g C – D, D – E e.t.c

So to derive the major scale this is the formula to use:

T              T              ST           T             T              T              ST

Look at this illustration below to get a better understanding

C   C#   D   D#   E   F   F#   G   G#   A   A#   B   C

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.