• Revealed: The White, Black, And Blue Notes On The Piano

    in Piano

    In today’s lesson, we’ll be focusing on the white, black, and blue notes on the piano.

    The keyboard has black and white notes:

    …from a physical level of perception. In addition to the white and black notes, there are blue notes on the piano and the goal of this lesson is to show you how they can be determined.

    Let’s get started.

    The White Notes

    There are 7 unique white notes on the piano and they are named using the first seven Roman alphabets – A, B, C, D, E, F, and G.

    However, due to a variety of reasons that we may not delve into in this lesson, C is considered as the first white note on the piano.

    Check out all the white notes from C to B:

    The entire keyboard layout consists of duplicates of these unique 7 white notes.

    A collection of all the white notes on the piano from C to C:

    …produces a major scale – the C major scale.

    The Black Notes

    There are 5 unique black notes on the piano and they are named using the first seven Roman alphabets – A, B, C, D, E, F, and G and pitch modifiers like the sharp (#) and flat (b)

    Check out all the black notes from F# to D#:

    …or from Gb to Eb:

    The entire keyboard layout consists of duplicates of these unique 5 black notes.

    A collection of all the white notes on the piano from F# to F#:

    …produces a major pentatonic scale – the F# major pentatonic scale.

    Physical Colors Vs Mental Color

    Music is physical and mental. According to Kenny Werner, “music is 95% mental and 5% physical” and I can’t agree more.

    The same way we have physical colors on the piano — which are black and white, there are mental colors as well. If you don’t believe me, ask any medical personnel about the medical condition called chromesthesia, where sounds are changed to mental colors when heard.

    One of the mental colors we have on the piano is blue and we’ll be exploring blue notes in the next segment.

    The Blue Notes

    Like I established in the previous segment, blue notes are not physically blue in color. Just like red is used to depict love or danger most of the time, the color blue is used to depict melancholy, express sadness, etc.

    Simply put, blue notes when played, convey a distinct emotional content that’s synonymous with worry, pain, sadness, etc.

    “What Are Blue Notes?”

    Blue notes are derived from the natural major scale when its third, fifth, and seventh tones are lowered by a half-step. For example, the blue notes in the key of C:

    …can be derived from the third, fifth, and seventh tones (which are E, G, and B):

    …by lowering them by a half-step to Eb, Gb, and Bb:

    So, Eb (the lowered third):

    …Gb (the lowered fifth):

    …and Bb (the lowered seventh):

    …are the blue notes in the key of C major:

    Tonal Characteristics Of Blue Notes

    Blue notes are foreign to the key and that’s why they are said to be chromatic notes. In the key of C major:

    …the blue notes (which are Eb, Gb, and Bb):

    …are foreign to the key (aka – “chromatic”).

    However, there’s a relationship between the blue notes and the key. Two out of the three blue notes in the key of C major (Eb and Bb):

    …are the third and seventh tones in the key of C minor:

    So the use of blue notes in the major key introduces elements of the minor key into the major key.

    Final Words

    Now you know there are blue notes on the piano. In a subsequent lesson, we’ll focus on how these blue notes can be applied.

    See you then!

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    Chuku Onyemachi

    Head of Education at HearandPlay Music Group
    Onyemachi "Onye" Chuku is a Nigerian musicologist, pianist, and author. Inspired by his role model (Jermaine Griggs) who has become his mentor, what he started off as teaching musicians in his Aba-Nigeria neighborhood in April 2005 eventually morphed into an international career that has helped hundreds of thousands of musicians all around the world. Onye lives in Dubai and is currently the Head of Education at HearandPlay Music Group and the music consultant of the Gospel Music Training Center, all in California, USA.




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