Piano Notes – Names, Chart and Keyboard Map

The seven note names

Notes are named with the letters A to G. After G the sequence starts again at A, one octave higher. There is no H — the seven letters exist because the major scale has seven notes.

The black keys take their name from a neighbouring white key, with a sharp (♯) meaning one key higher or a flat (♭) meaning one key lower. C♯ and D♭ are the same physical key on a piano. This is why every black key has two possible names.

Finding any note: the black key trick

You never need to count from the left end of the keyboard. The black keys are grouped in a repeating pattern of two and three. The white key immediately to the left of any group of two black keys is C.

That single rule gives you every note on the instrument: find the two-black-key group, step left one white key to land on C, then read the white keys upward — C, D, E, F, G, A, B — until the pattern repeats.

The full map: note names to keyboard keys

This table maps our online piano keyboard to note names in scientific pitch notation, where C4 is middle C. Lowercase letters are white keys and the capital letters in the second half are the black keys.

Octaves and why middle C matters

When the seven letters run out, the pattern restarts one octave higher. An octave is the distance from a note to the next note with the same name, and it always spans twelve keys — seven white and five black.

Middle C (C4) sits roughly in the centre of an 88-key piano and is the reference point for everything else. Sheet music is read relative to it, and it is the note most beginners learn first. On our keyboard it is the key labelled t.

Reading notes on a staff, briefly

Written music places notes on five lines and four spaces called a staff. A treble clef marks the staff used by the right hand, and the lines from bottom to top are E, G, B, D, F — the spaces spell F, A, C, E.

You do not need to read the staff to start playing. Letter notation, like the keyboard letters used across this site, gets you playing songs on day one while reading slowly follows.