Learning Sharps and Flats on a Piano

Video Transcript

"In this segment, we're going to talk about sharps and flats - basically, the names of the "black keys". So, we know that this is (playing) middle "C". Going up, this would be:(playing) "D", "E", "F", "G", and we start again with "A", "B", "C", et cetera. And here's "C" (playing), and we'll be counting back down the alphabet :(playing) "B", "A", "G", "F", right? But what about the "black notes" ? (playing, indicating note on keyboard) "C" sharp - sharps are going up. So this is called "C" sharp. But the black keys are special in that they have two names. Not only is this (pointing to keyboard) "C" sharp going up, but it's also "D" flat going down. Flat. Think about "it's flat - it's flat, it's going down", alright? So we know that this is "C" (playing), and we know that this is "C" sharp (playing), we know that this is "D" (playing), so therefore this is "D" flat. Sharps are going up; flats are going down. Let me quickly show you a sharp looks like this (drawing on blank sheet music), and a flat looks like this (drawing). So if I wrote "C" sharp (drawing) it would look like that - "C" sharp. I would want to play (playing) "C" sharp, "D" flat (playing)."