C sharp sounds higher in pitch than a regular C, but lower in pitch than D. For example, if you have the note ‘C’, and the sharp symbol appears next to it, you would instead play the note C sharp. This symbol means that you take whatever note is next to it, and make it sharp. A sharp takes whatever pitch is next to it, and raises it slightly. Sharpsįirst up, we have what’s called a ‘sharp’, which looks similar to a hashtag or a number symbol.

In music, we use two terms to talk about these ‘in between’ notes – sharps and flats. And it does! This note is a little bit higher in pitch then the ‘C’ right next to it, and a little bit lower in pitch than the ‘D’ right next to it as well.

Using the previous logic, we can imply that the pitch of the note also rests somewhere between C and D. Let’s look at that first black key in the illustration above, which sits between the notes ‘C’ and ‘D’. This same sort of system applies for all keys on the piano, including the black keys. The piano is set up to go from the lowest notes all the way on the left-hand side, to the highest notes on the right-hand side. In between some of the white keys, you can also see that we have some black keys between them. What about all the black keys? Sharps And Flats Okay, so, we have all of the white keys covered. Using this, you can count up or down in order to find the note that you’re looking for. For example, the C is always to the left of the two black keys that are near together. See the example below:īonus tip: This pattern holds true throughout the entire piano. One way to remember these notes, is that they correspond to the white keys on a piano. For example, how each of the notes in the audio below are all the note ‘A’: We have also learned about octaves, and how there are multiple instances of different notes within the same pitch class. Just to recap, the main pitch classes are: So far, we’ve learned about all the major notes, or pitch classes.

D flat symbol