3 Things You Should Know to Kick-Start Your Journey in Playing the Piano Chords

Are you completely new to playing the piano? If so, you are in the right place.

If you need a guide to get to where you want to be, I recommend that you download my “8 Steps to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be” in mastering the piano chords with exactly what to do, in order to start playing your first song. It’s free yo!

In this article, I want to show you how to begin this amazing journey of playing beautiful music with the piano.

Let’s start by taking it easy with learning these three topics:

1. Posture
2. Piano Keys
3. Fingers Numbering

1. Posture

I can’t emphasize more on how important it is to have the correct posture when playing the piano. Sitting properly not only ensure that you have healthy spine and arms but it also gives you confidence and freedom! Yes freedom!

Sitting with the right posture does not mean that you are stuck in a rigid position. It simply means that your body can move freely and harmoniously with the beautiful sound of the music that you are making and yet not compromising the state of your health.

So, here’s why I have chosen Gandalf to show you the correct posture when playing the piano:

• His forearms parallel to the piano keys.
• His shoulders relaxed and not hunched.
• I think he sits straight too and not too far from the piano.
• His fingers are rounded and not “flat” on the piano keys.
• He has the perfect arms posture where they are bent at about 110°. Your arms will naturally be at that angle if you sit straight and your forearms parallel to the piano keys. So yeah, you don’t need a protractor.
• His legs relaxed and grounded firmly on the floor.

In case sitting straight isn’t too clear from the photo above, here’s the perfect sitting posture… You should totally sit like this. Oh, I wanna add:-

• Sit on ¾ of the bench. Do not sit on the whole damn thing!

2. Piano Keys

When we first learned alphabets in school, we started with the letter ‘A’, but in learning the piano, we start with the piano key of C.

The piano keys are made of white and black keys. There are 52 white keys and 36 black keys which means there are a total of 88 keys on a piano.

You will notice that there are two islands on the piano which repeats itself seven times (7 octaves). Thus, you only need to learn the piano keys on these two islands.  Here’s how to recognize the piano keys names with these islands.

White Piano Keys

The first island consists of the white piano keys of C, D, and E, while the second island consists of F, G, A and B. So, all the white keys are C, D, E, F, G, A, B and back to  C.

Black Piano Keys

The black piano keys take their names after the white piano keys.

If the black key is a semitone higher (to the right side) than the white key, it is known as a sharp(#), and if it is a semitone lower (to the left side), it is known as a flat(b).

But for special cases such as for E#, B#, Cb and Fb, the sharps and flats land on white keys. For example, the sharp for E is F because from E to F is a semitone and there is no key in between them.

As you may have realized, these sets of island repeat itself as we go up another octave. As the name suggests, octave in Latin means ‘eighth’. Any note, from its first note to the next same note is known to be an octave apart.

Recommended: Get your own piano key and note stickers here to learn faster.

3. Fingers Numbering

Did you know that all of your fingers are numbered?  For playing the piano that is. The fingers numbering is quite straightforward and self-explanatory as you can see from the diagram below.

It is important for you to play the piano with correct fingerings because it ensures that your fingers can move fluidly and gracefully across the piano. It also make sure that you can reach and play all the keys that are required of a piano piece.

You will find the fingers numbering guide in a piano piece which typically look like this…

or in a diagram like this…

There you go! Now, sit proudly and get familiar with the piano keys and understand your fingers numbering. If you are ready, continue your journey with my article on Discover What is the Famous Piano Scale All About where I will share with you another music fundamental that will you help in your piano playing. See ya!