What is a Key?
Keys on a Piano
- There are 88 keys — 52 white and 36 black.
- The black keys get divided into groups of twos and threes.
- There is no division of the white keys.
- There are 12 keys, one for each tone of Western music.
- The 76 other keys are pitches of the 12 tones.
What is a Key?
- A key is a family of tones having fixed relation of one to another.
- There are seven tones to a key.
- The tone of a key from which all other tones resolve is the key tone.
- Another name for the key tone is the tonic.
Key Names
- In Lesson 1, you learned the tone names:
C, C♯ or D♭ , D, D♯ or E♭, E, F, F♯ or G♭, G, G♯ or A♭, A, A♯ or B♭, B
- There are 17 tone names for 12 tones as ten tone names name the same tones.
Major Keys and Minor Keys
- There are 24 keys: 12 major keys and 12 minor keys.
- Each major key and each minor key has a collection of chords that sound right when played in whatever successive order because tonal relationships exist among these chords.
- The names of the keys use the same names as the 12 tones with the words major or minor said after the tone name.C, G, D, A, E, B, G♭, D♭, A♭, E♭, B♭, F
