A shortened keyboard may only contain five or six octaves. While most pianos have 88 keys, there are many practice keyboards with fewer than seven full octaves. If you consider an octave to begin at C, then there are three keys in the “zero” octave at the very low end, and one key in the last octave at the high end. On a standard 88-key piano, there are seven octaves plus a few more keys at either end. This includes seven white keys and five black keys.

The pattern of black and white keys on piano is repeated every 12 notes. The standard 88-key piano was created in the late 1800s, adding four keys to the layout that you can recognize on any full piano today. Then piano makers increased to six octaves and later to seven full octaves, at the request of composers who wanted to use a larger range when writing piano music. Pianos were first designed based off a harpsichord layout, which had five octaves. For instance, the key of D has two sharps in it, F sharp and C sharp, which are played on the black keys. Other scales include some of the black keys, depending on how many sharps or flats are in the key. That means that all of the notes are played only on the white keys.

The C scale, for example, is played without any sharps or flats. You’ll get to know the keys on piano as you practice scales, to begin with. The black keys fill in the gaps for the remaining half-steps, which are notated as sharps or flats as a key signature or accidentals within the piano music. Pianos are arranged with white keys for the musical tones of A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. While most modern pianos contain 88 keys, you can find pianos with a shortened range, and even some that increase the number! But why, exactly, are the keys set up like that? We’ll explore that in this article. First, there are both white and black keys, and second, there is a distinct pattern that the keys on piano repeat. When you look at the keys on a piano, a few things pop out right away.

Pattern piano and keyboard