Learn the White Keys: Visualize the Keyboard

Kit-Kat Keyboard! It's time for your second-year student to learn to identify all of the white keys.  

Our goal is for students to identify the keys without counting up.  If you see your child mumbling "C, D, E, F... G!"  Then you know she was counting up, which takes longer than instant recognition.  Your child can learn instant recognition by visualizing the keyboard geography (arrangement of black and white keys).

An Abstract Concept
At first, the arrangement of keys and their names are abstract and foreign concepts to your child.  Let me give you a sense of how it might feel: if I show you two nonsense arrangements of dots and tell you the first one is called "MONAY" and the second is called "CARRACA", what are the chances that tomorrow or next week you'll be able to recall those facts?

Students find it easier to remember new bits of information if we help them find meaning in what they are seeing.  Silly and outrageous mnemonics are easy to remember.  How about if I connect those dots and show how the first set looks like the arms of a monkey, which sounds almost like MONAY, and the dots on the second set connect to form the jaw of a CARRACA-dile (crocodile).  Do you think your chances of being able to match these pictures to their names will improve? Or your abilty to recall their names? 

If MONAY and CARRACA were actually useful pieces of information, this visual mnemonic would help you remember their names as you got started used them in your music practice.  With use and repetition, your mind would construct a true and valuable meaning for these images and eventually you wouldn't think of them as monkeys and crocodiles anymore...you would internalize them as monays and carracas.  

The same process takes place as your child gets to know each of the white keys and what they truly are in music.  Once he internalizes the look, the sound, the meaning, and the use of these keys, he will think of them as themselves.
 
The Kit-Kat Chant
The kit-kat chant gives your child a silly and outrageous meaning for the keys: those black keys look like candy!  If your kiddo still struggles with finding Cs and Fs quickly, do not skip this chant in your drill time until she masters those.   You'll know she's got it when she can:

* Fly along the keyboard (low to high) and find all the C's (or F's) without pause.
* Sing the pitch of the notes as she's finding them. (Let's strengthen the ear as well as the eye for identifying notes.)
* Do it again in the other direction (high to low).
* Identify a C or F when you play and ask her "What is this key?"  Repeat 5 times all over the keyboard.

Visualize the White Keys


Show your child the below picture, or draw it.  "Doesn't it look like those two black keys could be tipped together to make a little roof?  Who could live in such a tiny house?  Probably a Dog!  That key is D!  Can you find all the dogs (Ds)?" As you child plays all the Ds, have him sing middle D pitch!  "Deee, Deee, Deee." You may decide to just introduce this one for a few days or a week.

 

"Now imagine a bowl of food just on this side of the dog house.  That's because dogs LIKE TO EAT.  EEEEEEEat starts with E.  Can you find all the places to Eat?"  My students like to chant (on the pitch of E): "I like TO EAT.  I like TWO EAT." as they find all the Es (strike them on the word 'eat') by looking for groups of TWO black keys.  They think puns are hilarious!

Next, show your child the picture below.  "That doghouse was pretty small.  If we built a house and used THREE boards for a roof, it would be bigger.  Maybe it could be Grandma's house and we could visit her.  See where Grandma is standing in her house, it looks like she's got an Ant in the house!"

Have your child practice finding all the Gs or all the As on the keyboard while visualizing this silly picture.  For my own students, I tell them it is GINA'S house and the first key is G because that's how my name starts and the other key in the house is A because that's how my name ends (true for 'grandma' too).  You could also decide that building is a GARAGE.  My students know the first two letters in the word garage are G-A!

Almost done! "Wow, you know almost all of the white keys! You have been finding C and F for a long time, then you learned D and E, and then you mastered G and A.  Now I'll tell you about another animal, and it's not a dog this time; it's a BEE.  Where might bees live?" (listen to some suggestions) "Wild bees build a hive at the top of a THREE.  Oops, did I say THREE?  I meant to say TREE.  I guess on our piano, BEES live at the top of the THREEs." Laugh it up (I tell you, they love puns), then have them practice finding all Bs, not by counting from F (or heaven forbid, C) but from looking for groups of three black keys and jumping to the top.

Let's Do Some Drawing

Because this stage of key naming is so visual, I recommend some drawing fun! Draw a rectangle for your child, show how to divide it into 3 keys (or 4) and then how to add 2 (or 3) black keys.  This will be tricky the first time!  Your child might be surprised to notice how the black keys straddle two white keys.  Identify the white keys.  Challenge your child to recreate the drawing, as an advanced test of her ability to visualize the keyboard.  If she can draw it, you know she can visualize it.

Good luck learning the white keys!  Remember to introduce them bit by bit and take every opportunity to have your child SING the pitch as she plays it (love that ear training!). 

- Gina Weibel, M.S.

Let's Play Music Teacher 

Extra! Extra! Cdim7
(The Diminished 7th Chords)
I'm including this postscript for fun, because I still enjoy visual mnemonics, too!  There are chords beyond the Red, Blue, and Yellow, and one that I find to be lots of fun is a four-note chord called the diminished seventh.  The dim7 is the chord that gives you the  awesome melodrama sound just as the villain jumps out and grabs the damsel!  or the trains are about to collide! or the monster is about to attack!

If you've got a third-year student composing a song and looking for some excitement and tension, show that child the dim7!

There are lots of names for all of the dim7 chords, but there are really only three of them!  Here's why: this chord is build from a root, the next note is 3 keys up, the next note is 3 keys up and the next note is 3 keys up.  It looks like this, which I like to call "HOUSE".  This chord has 4 names (Cdim7, Eflat dim7, Gflat dim7, Adim7), but they all have only these notes .  As you are learning in your third-year Orange Roots class, you could play the higher C instead of middle C (inversion).  It will still be HOUSE because I remember these are the 4 notes.  By visualizing my picture, I can quickly find the notes I need.

The next chord looks like this and I remember it as "UPSIDE DOWN HOUSE." Can you see it in your mind's eye? Totally!  I am guessing you can figure out how to give this chord four names (any note of these special guys could be the root, and it's the root that gives the chord it's name.)

The final chord looks like this and I call it "DILAPIDATED HOUSE" or "FALLING-DOWN HOUSE."

Play these chords as you are improvising (especially on Halloweens songs!).  I love that in Let's Play Music, we teach students how to make music have the feel they want, to be creative, and to understand how to put it together.  This is an advanced topic, but don't let that stop you from playing these notes with your child to hear how they sound.  May your damsels all get rescued!

-Gina Weibel