AN INTRODUCTION TO THE KEYBOARD

Music is difficult to define accurately. This is because over the years, many people have described music in different forms. However, they all have one thing in common; music is an organised sound!
what is the keyboard all about? All the average person knows is that it consists of black and white keys, which produce sound when struck.

The keyboard refers to instruments like the piano, organ and electronic keyboards. The piano belongs to the class of musical instruments called string instruments; the are composed of strings which produce sound when you strike them. You maybe wondering where the strings are? Well, they are located inside. The pipe organ is a wind instrument which produces sound by driving pressurized air through organ pipes selected via a keyboard. The common instrument most people call the keyboard is the electronic keyboard, which mimics a wide variety of musical instruments; this means that you can 'play' almost any instrument using the electronic keyboard, provided the voice for that instrument has been preinstalled in your electronic keyboard. The electronic keyboard produces sound using electric signals.

What are the first things to learn, when you pick up the keyboard (from now on, 'keyboard' refers to
the common electronic keyboard)? I am assuming you have access to a keyboard.
First, like I tell anybody I want to train, you must know how to connect the adapter or batteries, put on the keyboard and select a voice. A voice refers to the particular sound which the keyboard will be producing until you change it. It varies, depending on the instrument the keyboard is trying to mimic e.g. the trumpet voice tries to mimic a real trumpet. I must say before I forget, that learning any instrument will be more effective using videos. This post however will try to explain using pictures, videos may follow.

It is now time to know what a note is. A note has been described as the 'atom' of written music. It is the smallest part of music. A combination of notes which when sounded together produce harmony, is called a Chord (this will be explained later). keeping it simple, there are 12 notes in music, and these notes are represented on the keyboard. In many countries, notes are described on the 12-tone chromatic scale using the format shown below. The notes are Doh, de, Re, ri, Mi, Fa, fe, Soh, ze, La, le/tau, Ti. The notes are divided into 7 majors (doh, re, mi, fa, soh, la, ti) and 5 minors (de, ri, fe, ze, le/tau). The 7 major notes are shown using the key of C. (how to derive the notes for any key will be described later.

 

The keyboard also consists of 12 reoccurring keys as shown below

It is important to know the keys of the keyboard, and the notes in music.

Notice that the keys are reoccurring. This means there is a reoccurring unit. That unit is called an octave. Like the latin word 'octavus', which means 8, this unit consist of 7 major notes and an 8th note is actually where the name octave is derived. This note is higher in pitch than the previous similar note. The distance from one C to the next is called the octave. You can use the octave to determine how big a keyboard is.

 

In my next post, I will discuss sharps and flats, tone and semitone and how chords are derived.