Piano Tutorial - Middle C

From http://www.keyboardsheetmusic.co.uk/mikes_music_blog/piano-tutorial-middle-c

Todays lesson is about a very common musical note called Middle C. Today I will show you how to recognise this note on sheet music.

Middle C is an important reference note on the staff and the keyboard. If I ask you to play C on the keyboard. You might say which one. Now if I say play me the 1^st C above Middle C you will no exactly which C to play (you will when you have completed this section).

First, we will deal with Middle C on the staff (this is also the second note below the staff discussed in the previous section) this is how Middle C looks on the staff

Notice there is a small line in the centre of the note. This is called a Ledger Line. It is like a continuation of the staff. Therefore, instead of printing a full line we use a small line, it is easy to read it makes the rest of the music easy to read and Middle C is probably the most recognised note in the world.

Now let us try an example of how we can use this as a reference note.

Here we have Middle C D and D

As you can see, the first D is slightly higher than Middle C and the second D is a lot higher than Middle C.

This tells us that the first D is very close to Middle C in fact on the keyboard it is the next white note.

Therefore, the first D in the above example is the first D above Middle C. Which means the second D is the second D above Middle C. Please note that we are using distances from bottom to top not left to right

The distance from one note to another left to right does not matter at all at this stage. It is also useful to know that as the notes go higher you play higher up the keyboard, which means to the right of the keyboard and as the notes go lower you play lower down the keyboard to the left of the keyboard.

Up the Keyboard and Higher = Right

Down the keyboard and lower = Left

To see more about Middle C and how to find it on a piano keyboard, download my Beginners Piano Course. It has 10 lessons for the beginner and you can download it to your desktop for a small fee. Find out more here: Beginners Piano Course

Watch out for our final lesson in this series called Note Values. This lesson is about those musical notes you see written on sheet music, what are they called and what is there timing value.

Until next time

Mike Shaw
Mikes Music Room