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Learn the notes

Seven names, twelve keys that repeat and a couple of symbols: that's all you need to find your way around the keyboard, and to play with Purrthoven.

The seven note names

In English- and German-speaking countries, notes are named with letters, and the scale starts from C. In Italy, France, Spain and most of Latin America they use the syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si instead:

In the game you choose how to read the notes: in the menu, under Note names, pick "C D E" or "Do Re Mi".

Try the keyboard

Tap the keys to hear the notes, and switch notation with the buttons at the top. Below, you'll see the note's name with its octave number and its frequency in hertz.

White keys and black keys

Look at the black keys: they come in groups of two and three, and the pattern repeats across the whole keyboard. It's the easiest way to find your way: C is always the white key just left of the two black keys.

Between two neighbouring keys (white or black) there is a semitone, the smallest step on the piano. Black keys take their names from the white keys next to them:

• a sharp (♯) raises a note by a semitone: the black key right of C is C♯;
• a flat (♭) lowers it by a semitone: the same key is also D♭.

Two names for the same key: they're called enharmonic notes. In the game, black keys read with # (sharp) or ♭ (flat), as in the piece's score.

Octaves

After B you start again from C, a little higher: from one C to the next is an octave, made of twelve semitones (seven white keys and five black ones). Going up an octave, the frequency of the sound doubles.

To tell octaves apart we add a number: the piano's middle C is C4 (about 261.6 Hz), and the A above it, A4, is the note instruments usually tune to: 440 Hz. A modern piano has 88 keys, from the lowest A (A0) to the highest C (C8): 52 white and 36 black.

Where the names come from

The syllable names go back to the 11th century and the monk and music theorist Guido of Arezzo. To help singers remember pitches he used a hymn to St John the Baptist, Ut queant laxis, attributed to Paul the Deacon: each line starts one note higher than the one before, and the first syllable of each line became the name of that note: ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la.

In the 1600s, in Italy, ut was replaced by do, which is easier to sing; tradition credits the music scholar Giovanni Battista Doni. Si came later, as the seventh note: the most common explanation is that it comes from the initials of Sancte Iohannes, the hymn's last line.

Two curiosities: in the English-speaking world si became ti, so that every note would start with a different letter; and in Germany B means B flat, while B natural is called H.

How it works in PlayByPaw

You don't need to know the whole keyboard to play: the five columns are five neighbouring keys, the ones under the five fingers of one hand. We call that a hand position. On a computer you play them with Space, N, M, comma and period; on a phone, just tap the column.

When the melody leaves those five keys, the hand moves: the position changes and so do the names on the keys at the bottom of the screen. Ode to Joy is the ideal piece to start with: it almost always uses a single position, from C to G.

Play it now with Purrthoven ▶

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