Knowing what the notes are on a piano and how to read them is an essential skill for any pianist. This piano note guide will teach you some useful tips and help you approach new piano songs with confidence.
We will be covering what piano notes are, how to play them in time as well as how to interpret performance directions.
Understanding the notes on a piano is a bit like learning a language, it may take a bit of time at first, but once you’ve got to grips with how it all works, you’ll be able to play whatever you want!
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What are the notes on a piano?
Each of the notes on a piano has a letter name and these piano notes are ordered just like the English alphabet. In music, we label the notes from A to G and then repeat from A again. Here are the piano notes with letters for the white notes on a keyboard:
The black piano keys have names too but will get back to that later in this article. If you’re looking to learn piano notes as a beginner, start by focusing on the white keys. If you’re unsure where the notes on a keyboard are, remember:
- C is to the left of the group of two black notes
- F is to the left of the group of three black notes
All the notes on piano are arranged in octaves, with each octave consisting of eight notes (C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C). Moving left on the keyboard lowers the pitch, while moving right raises it.
Right-hand notes are written in the treble clef, and left-hand notes are in the bass clef. This way, you’ll be able to cover all notes on the piano without any trouble!
How to read piano notes
Before digging deeper into reading sheet music, it’s important to grasp how the notes are structured on the page. The treble and bass clefs, the staff and the placement of piano notes all play an important part in helping you navigate the keyboard confidently. Let’s break down the key components of piano notes for beginners and make reading music simpler.
The treble and bass clef
At the start of a piece of piano sheet music, you will see two symbols. These are the treble and the bass clefs. The treble clef is most often associated with the right hand and the bass clef is usually where the notes for your left hand are written.
The staff
The treble and the bass clef each sit on a staff. A staff is made up of five horizontal lines which have four spaces in between them. In piano music both staffs are held together by a brace. This is known as a grand staff.
Where notes sit on the staff
Middle C serves as a central point on the piano and appears on both the treble and bass clefs. In sheet music, Middle C is located on a ledger line between the two staves. Middle C sits just below the staff, while for the bass clef, it appears just above the staff. It bridges both clefs, making it a key reference point for reading music and coordinating between hands.
Higher-pitched notes are to the right on the piano, and lower-pitched notes are to the left. On the staff, each step up (line or space) moves to the next note.
Piano notes chart
Take a look at our handy piano notes chart to help you memorise the notes on a piano. Notice how all piano notes stick to the repeating pattern across the keyboard following the musical alphabet. This piano notes chart is also a great way to visualize the relationship between bass and treble clef. Keep it handy and be sure to use it as a reference when you’re learning.
These note values are fundamental in reading and playing music, helping to establish rhythm and timing in your piano performances.
How to learn piano notes?
There are various efficient methods for beginners to practice piano notes, with three basic routes to mastery: note recognition, landmark notes and interval recognition. Each approach has distinct advantages for learning beginning piano notes and increasing sight-reading abilities.
This guide looks into the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy, helping you choose the best approach to learn piano notes and play easy piano songs.
Note recognition
Take a look at the following images and then match up the mnemonics with the note names.
Note that the combined mnemonics start from the bottom and move upwards alphabetically, and apply to just lines or just spaces. The piano notes labeled for the spaces in the treble clef spell the word “face”, you can remember this as “face in the space”.
And now onto the bass clef, which follows the same principle but with different note letters:
Landmark notes
Learning landmark notes is a popular and efficient method for mastering piano keys. Instead of memorizing every note on the piano, you focus on a few key landmark notes on each staff. Below is a grand staff showing the treble and the bass clef. You can use the clefs to help you find two of the most important landmark notes: The treble G and the bass F. To find treble G, look at the treble clef and how it wraps around the second line from the bottom. The shape of this part of the clef looks a bit like a G which is a useful way to remember the note name. This line is treble G.
To find bass F, look at where the two dots of the bass clef sit. In between these dots is bass F. Again, you can join the dots to the clef and imagine the shape of an F to help you remember this note name.
Once you’ve found your landmark note, you can count up or down from them to find the note name you need:
Interval recognition
An interval is the distance between two notes. Learning to recognize how intervals sound and look is a valuable tool for learning to read piano sheet music. Instead of focusing on individual note names, you can train your eyes and ears to identify these patterns quickly.
One key interval to start with is a third, which is a common interval in music. It’s easy to recognize: on the staff, a third involves hopping from one line to the next line, or from one space to the next. This is called a skip.
Examples of easy to read intervals:
- Step (second): This is when the notes move from a line to the very next space (or vice versa), like moving from C to D. It’s the smallest movement on the staff.
- Fifth: A fifth spans from a line note to the next line two spaces away, such as moving from C to G. It has a strong, open sound.
- Octave: An octave is a large jump from one note to the same note, but higher or lower. It’s the same pitch class, like C to C, but eight notes apart.
Using intervals, you can track whether the music moves up or down and whether it steps or skips. This method is more intuitive and works well in combination with the landmark note method. You start by identifying the first note, then follow the shape of the music based on the intervals, letting your fingers respond naturally to these patterns. This allows you to play fluidly without always needing to name each note, making it an effective way to practice reading piano sheet music.
Our Skoove lesson on the song‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ is a fantastic way to practice the interval recognition approach.
Sharps and flats
- Flats (♭) lower a note by a half step, moving to the nearest black key to the left (or white key if there is no adjacent black key). For instance, E♭ (“E flat”) sits just to the left of E.
- Sharps (♯) raise a note by a half step, taking it to the closest black key on the right (or white key if there is no adjacent black key). For example, G♯ (“G sharp”) is positioned directly to the right of G.
- Naturals (♮) are the white keys that represent the standard notes without any alteration. So, C♮ (“C natural”) is the regular C found on a white key.
Once you’ve grasped moving from one note to the next by way of intervals, have a go at trying some basic piano chords, for which you’ll have to play more than one piano note at a time.
Tips for memorizing piano notes
Reading piano sheet music is not only a combination of reading note names and intervals – sometimes the piano note values and names are not the most important thing. We learn how to read piano note names in the same way that we learn to read letters in languages. Playing piano by ear is also a useful skill that can help support you throughout your journey of learning to read piano sheet music.
Once you can read from one note to the next using interval recognition, then you can try patterns of 3 or 4 notes at a time, forming phrases. Our Skoove lesson on Mozart’s Sonata no. 11 is a great way to learn how to remember piano notes!
Through Dimensional Learning you can enhance your practice by developing a sense of keyboard geography , sense of key/ key signatures, ear training and hand training.
- Keyboard geography – If you learn the layout of the keyboard you can find notes quickly without looking. Understanding note relationships and practicing stopping randomly in scales to name the note you’re on is a great way to do this.
- Sense of key – Work on anticipating common note patterns by understanding key signatures and the key you’re playing in and practice with songs like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to reinforce key familiarity.
- Ear training – You can strengthen note recognition by listening and matching melodies on the piano, focus on familiar songs to identify intervals and rhythmic patterns. Use Skoove’s online piano lessons to develop musical intuition.
- Hand training – Improve your note accuracy by making sure each note is played with a specific finger. Try to avoid finger shifts that slow progress. Use regular scale practice to reinforce correct hand positioning and improve your muscle memory.
- Use mnemonics – Apply memory aids like the ones discussed in this article to make note recognition faster and more intuitive while reading music.
How to play in time
Now we have learned how to read pitches on the staff we can cover how to play these notes in time. This will allow you to read and write music that follows a particular rhythm or pulse. Let’s dive in and look at the two main concepts behind musical timing, note values and time signatures.
Note and rest values
Musical note values tell you both where to play notes and how long to play them for. These values are dictated by making certain changes to the symbols we use to notate pitches through different flags, beams (combined consecutive flags) and note heads. This shows their relationship to a musical pulse or beat. Let’s start by breaking down the most common types of note value.
- Whole note/Semibreve: A whole note is represented by an open (hollow) note head without a stem. It typically lasts for four beats in common time (4/4), meaning you hold the note for the entire measure.
- Half note/Minim: A half note has an open note head and a stem. It lasts for two beats in common time, so you play it for half the duration of a whole note, filling half a measure.
- Quarter note/Crotchet: A quarter note is filled (solid) and also has a stem. It lasts for one beat, meaning you can fit four quarter notes into one measure of common time.
- Eighth note/Quaver: An eighth note looks just like a crotchet but with the addition of a flag or beam. It lasts for half a beat.
- Sixteenth note/Semiquaver: A sixteenth note lasts for a quarter of a beat. This is shown by the addition of a second flag or beam.
Take your time and memorise how these notes look and familiarise yourself with what parts of the notes are called. These notes also have their equivalent in rests. Rests are notated silence and music and tell you when to leave space in music. Take a look at this handy table to help you memorise all these different values.
Dotted notes and rests
With both notes and rests dots can be added to the right side. This dot adds half of the note’s value to the original duration.
This dotted half note or rest is equivalent to three beats. As a result of the added dot the half note which is usually worth two beats has half of this added on again (one beat) to create the full duration of this dotted note. This applies the same way to both rests and notes and to any note value a dot is added to.
Time signatures and bars
Time signatures determine the meter of a piece. They are made up of two numbers to show how to count each bar:
A common time signature is 4/4 where you count to four in each bar (four quarter-note beats per measure):
Another common example is 3/4 where you count to three in each bar (three quarter-note beats per measure):
Each measure and division of this time signature of music is marked with bar lines, which help musicians divide these rhythmic pulses into easy to understand chunks.
These are vertical lines that are drawn through the staff. This splits the music into these measures/bars, making music easier to count. Any combination of the previous note values can be used in a bar to create rhythms as long as the total corresponds to the correct duration of a bar.
Try using what you’ve learned to follow along with one of Skoove’s hand lessons and you’ll get to grips with rhythm and counting in no time.
Performance directions
Now we have the basics of pitch and rhythm it’s time to move on to how to add nuance to your playing. Understanding performance directions, tempo markings and articulation is the key to give your playing a more polished sound and real musicality.
Tempo
Tempo markings indicate how fast or slow a piece should be played. You will see with a number and a beat duration to tell you how many of this beat type occurs in a minute (BPM – beats per minute), or a written term. Most of these terms are in Italian and can be found on the online metronome.
This shows that the tempo is ‘Adagio’ aka. 40 crotchet beats per minute.
💡Check out these common examples of music tempo markings in this handy, free downloadable PDF chart!
Articulation
Piano articulation refers to little marks that change how we read the music. These markings change how the note is held or attacked or even the emphasis or volume of the notes in question. You will still play the same pitch, but the different articulation markings will create a difference of phrasing or feel.
Slurs and legato (phrase marking articulations)
- Slurs/Legato: Indicate that a group of notes should be connected together for a smooth sound. Longer slurs can also be used as phrase marks to show a particular group of notes belonging to a musical phrase.
Staccato, staccatissimo and portato (detached articulations)
- Staccato: Shown by a dot above a note. These should be played short and detached as half the duration of the notated value.
- Staccatissimo: This is an extreme staccato and makes notes even more separated, still without altering rhythmic duration.
- Portato: This is an articulation that combines legato and staccato. Notated with both a slur and staccato dots for a slight detachment of three waters of the notes value.
Accents, sforzando, marcato, tenuto and fortepiano (dynamic emphasis articulations)
- Accents: Put emphasis on a single note.
- Marcato: This should be played slightly louder than surrounding notes.
- Tenuto: This articulation mark shows that a note should be played for its full rhythmic duration.
- Fortepiano (fp): A suddenly loud note/phrase that should be immediately dropped to soft.
- Sforzando (sfz): A sudden and forceful accent followed by a quick reduction in volume, it is more accented than a forte piano.
Fermatas (pause or hold)
- Implies a brief pause, it is used to extend a note or rest’s duration for added expressiveness.
Experimenting with articulation techniques helps musicians enhance their interpretation and bring greater clarity and emotion to their performance. Try out your newfound knowledge with one of our handy lessons!
Conclusion
Now that you know all the notes on the piano, how long to play them for and how to articulate them, reading sheet music and sight-reading will become much easier! Reading music is just one part of learning. Intention, emotion, communication and connection are crucial elements of piano playing that aren’t notated.
To explore these aspects, try the Skoove piano app and sign up for a free trial. As you have seen in this article Skoove offers a wide range of songs and lessons, including some excellent courses for improving piano technique. You can watch performances and slow down the speed as you learn, applying the tips discussed in this article. Happy note reading!
Author of this blog post
Vicki Young
Vicki Young is a pianist and singer with a degree in Music from the University of Sheffield. She lives in London, UK with her husband and son. Vicki is a communications and marketing freelancer who has worked with a range of organizations across the music and charity sectors.
Published by Lydia Ogn from the Skoove team
