To get a really full piano sound in your right hand, stuff all the notes of the chord between the octave notes. Of course you need to know chords, and you need to know what chord is in force at any given moment, but given that, you can create a big, full sound for your melody in the right hand.

Playing the tune of a song in a “single-finger” style leaves much to be desired in terms of fullness. One way to make a stronger melody is to play it in octaves with an interval of a 3rds under the top octave note. Watch this short video:

What is an octave? The word “octave” is related to “octopus”, “octagon”, etc — in other words, eight. In music, an octave is 8 diatonic scale notes  higher or lower than  the note of the same name.

For example, the “A” note is always 8 notes higher or lower than the previous “A”. The “A” above middle C vibrates 440 times per second, so the “A” an octave above it would vibrate 880 times per second, while the “A” below middle C would vibrate 220 times per second, and so on. 

The human ear identifies these octave notes as being “the same” — only higher or lower, so if a soprano sang A440 and a bass sang A110, the human ear would hear it as the same note — just separated by pitch. That’s why there are only 7 distinct diatonic pitches and only 12 distinct chromatic pitches, despite the fact that the piano keyboard has 88 keys. Each note is repeated over and over again, but at a higher or lower octave.

I am often guilty of assuming too much. Since I’ve been around music and the piano since I was old enough to walk, I tend to assume that everyone else knows the basics of piano notes and the piano keyboard. But it’s not necessarily so.

Some time ago I was talking about the piano, and a friend said to me “I don’t know Middle C from Tweedle Dee.” It slowly dawned on me that there are thousands of people who didn’t grow up with a piano in their homes, so how in the world could they know where various piano notes are located?

So here is Piano Notes 101: The piano keyboard is divided into white keys and black keys. The white keys start at the far left of the keyboard with a note called “A.” That is followed by B, C, D, E, F, and G, and then repeats over and over nearly 7 times until you reach the very top key on the keyboard which is a “C.”

The black keys are sharps and flats. Each black key has two names depending upon how it is used. If you move down from a white key, the black key next to it is called a flat. If you move up from a white key, the black key next to it is a sharp. (For you who know the piano, you will see that I am oversimplyfiing here so beginners won’t become confused.) There are 7 different white keys and 5 different black keys, making a total of 12 different keys which are then repeated in each octave up the keyboard until you reach the top “C.” There are 88 total keys on a standard piano keyboard. (Some electronic keyboards have fewer keys.)

Please watch this short 2-minute video IF you, like my friend, don’t know Middle C from Tweedle Dee.

Piano note names on the piano keyboard from chordman on Vimeo.