Introducing the keyboard
Lesson Objectives
- To familiarise ourselves with the layout of the keyboard and be able to play and identify a number of notes on the keyboard.
- Introduce the musical stave and begin to be able to recognise different notes and their positions on the stave.
- Introduce the concept of rhythm using whole notes, half notes and quarter notes.
- Introduce and be able to play simple chords of A and G known as triads.
- Introduce common time.
To play the keyboard it is necessary to understand the names of the notes, both on the keyboard and on the musical stave.
The first letter of the musical alphabet is ‘A’ and this is where we are going to begin our study of the keyboard.
Look at our picture of a modern keyboard below. It is the same as a piano and consists of both black and white keys.
For the purpose of our first exercise you will see that we have indicated where you will find the note of A. We will introduce more notes as we progress through the lesson and course.
For the moment we have placed the note name under the white notes only in Figure 1, below. The A we are going to play is slightly emboldened and has a red dot above it on the keyboard.
Next: Introducing the musical stave
