Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum How to automatically sharp or flat in the key

Personally, I think the problem is because of the fact that most people are taught they key of C first because it's 'easy', and then they get stuck there for a long time. Because of that, all keys with sharps and flats in them are therefore automatically 'hard'.

I followed 'normal' music school training, and I stayed in the key of C for a gazillion years before I learned my first piece in G, and then one in D... while a friend of mine started at the same time, with a private teacher, and he started out with a piece in a 'difficult' key. That teacher treated all keys as the same, and just assigned pieces in E, or Ab or F#.

That friend was a much better player than me when it came to playing pieces in 'other' keys.

I switched to that teacher later, and I've learned to play (organ) in all keys, but still, to this day, C, G, D, and F are better than others, because those are the keys I've played in the most when starting out. D, with two black keys, was the most difficult key I've played in while in music school. (I had classical organ lessons for 4 years, but I did get the Toccata part of BWV 565 in before quitting. It was the entire reason to start playing organ.)

So IMHO, the only way to learn to play well in a lot of keys is to play a lot of different keys.

Oddly, occasionally I'll notice about 4 bars in that I'm playing in the complete wrong key - my mind subconsciously transposes!! It's very strange for me as I have zero improvisational skills, and have only just gotten back into playing during the last 4 years, but mainly sightreading pop music (classically trained but stopped altogether ~20 years ago).

So I can see how one can easily forget a flat/sharp... my brain just forgets them in a different way!! :P

I think in addition to scales it's helpful to play the chords in a given key to orient yourself. That way it's not so much note-note-note, but teaching your hands to recognize the shapes and relationships involved.

Playing through the inversions is especially good for getting a sense of the whole landscape of the key.

Every time you practice the piece, say the notes in the key signature, say the key it it written in. When you make a mistake, do that again and again. Mark your music , learn it right the first time. Learned mistakes are the devil to correct.

The more black keys there are, the easier it is to play and learn.

What a great thread, or at least for me. I've played guitar since dirt was invented. Key changes can mean just moving the same pattern up or down the neck. From day one I've been saying that I will never be able to learn all the major keys on the piano. So far it looks like I'm right but I'm not smart enough to give up!

Ok so I had a lesson today. We're going to keep going through the Mike Springer Not Just Another Scale books. Which here's a plug for those books. When you're learning a new key, there's another easy piano piece for you. (Easy for me, probably harder for someone learning these scales at the "proper"time in their education) And I'm going to practice chords with inversions instead of just root position and add the root on top too so it's more like real music.

I think it may be that I don't mess up basic chords, that I just know the shape instinctively from those Alfred books. But a person doesn't usually play chords in root position so we will it do this other way with inversions and arpeggiate them.

Like I said, I neglected scales as a kid. She had me doing them, but then I had a difficult year with caregiving responsibilities so I couldn't keep everything up and dang, for me, scales are very boring compared to rep. I am hopeful.

There are different ways to be easy and hard.

C is the "brain-easiest" key. No sharps or flats to think about.

B is the "finger-easiest" key. You use all five black keys.

The black keys stick up with lots of room around them, which makes it easy to get a finger on them from a variety of hand positions and without hitting adjacent keys.

Yes, I do think it's physically easier to play with lots of black keys.

Today I played a couple pieces with two sharps, umm D and is it B minor? And hmmm. No problem. What the heck? Usually I have terrible problems remembering. I just did it, mostly. Didn't have to think too hard.

Sometimes it seems I get most frustrated right before a breakthrough. I wonder if I get restless, on the cusp of getting a skill really internalized, so I start to whine. ? Well I'll see if today was an anomaly soon enough. Or maybe I've played lots of pieces in D and B minor.

I'm trying out suggestions here. Did more complicated arpeggios, with inversions.

Two sharps are F# and C#, in the key of D.

......and its relative minor, B minor.

When I was taking lessons as a child, I played several pieces each week and learned notes and other basics but I had no theory (that I remember) and I don't even remember playing scales. I don't think I have just blocked that memory. Returning as an adult, key changes, figuring out the basic key a piece is in, etc has been pretty difficult.

Taking Octaves 8 suggestion. I like Czerny's Op 599, no 12. I often play it and try to play it in different keys while looking only at the notes in C Major.

I'll take a look at that Czerny. My teacher doesn't use Czerny, or at least, has not used his works with me.

C is certainly the brain-easiest, but from a pedagogical point of view, I have seen most in agreement that Db major is the finger-easiest. B major is actually quite difficult for most people, again, among my pedagogical friends.

But, "easy" is subjective of course. I find reading flats to be extremely easy, but sharps give me problems (it was the exact opposite 20 years ago). But most people seem to find reading sharps way easier than flats. I can't explain why, though--I never put effort into the research.

LOL. Yes, of course.

I can't even remember when I have played a piece in B or B minor... I can't even remeber *ever* playing a piece in those keys to be honest

Long time lurker but decided to make this my first post…. .. . I didn’t see this explicitly brought up so thought I’d share what I have learned This may not necessarily apply to the OP but this is Adult beginners so here goes… ..apologize if its a bit overly long...

I took up the piano again after 30 years, when I was a fairly capable teenage player. I had forgotten everything, and I mean everything. In retrospect I realized that the learning techniques I used as a child were not effective for me. At least my brain does not work like that. So I applied lessons learned from my own professional life to piano playing and have made faster progress than I did as a child! Here are a few things that worked far better for me this time around, with far fewer mistakes. Sometimes even zero mistakes! Yipeee!

1. Simplify the pattern.
My conscious brain cannot hold more than 3-4 pieces of information at the same time. It is simply impossible for me to remember Key of G Major + F# + Location of F + read the staff + finger to use.
The thought of E Major being F#+C#+G#+D# + Locations etc is/was far too much for my brain. So I began breaking it down into simpler and simpler pieces of data that I could hold in my brain during play. I can’t stress enough that this approach is only for play. For normal music study all the theory is very relevant. But during play I want to remove as much information as possible between the note on the sheet and pressing the key.

So here is my strategy for Sharps/Flats only during play (Can’t stress this enough). Ignoring other info on sheet.

- Verify number of sharps/flats count.
- On the keys play the sharps/flats in pattern. F#-C#-G#-D#-A#. & Bb-Eb-Ab-Db-Gb. Do this several times and simplify pattern in mind. For instance F# in NOT F and then #. It is first Black key of the set of three. This is (one) piece of information only. Now we come to keys.
First is No sharps. Second is 5 Sharps. All black key only. (Both are 1 piece of information)
One sharp, F#. Play it, every time, critical.(1 piece of info)
2 #’s becomes First Black key on both 2 & 3 sets. Play it. In pattern. (this is again 1 piece of information for my brain).
3#’s is previous + second black key on 3 set. G#. Play it in pattern. (2 pieces of info).
4#’s is 5#’s, minus one(2 pieces of info). Which is A natural. Play the sharps in order and play the A natural. Let your brain understand the pattern.
Same pattern for Flats in reverse. (So just 2 related patterns for your brain, in essence 1 pattern with some tweaks)

- Remove Key from memory.
- Remove Number of sharps/flats from memory.
- Remove all other guides from memory.
- Only play the pattern you just memorized.

Do this every time you start.

Occasionally I lose my way and am forced back to step #1 which slows the play down but these stops have become fewer as your brain snaps into the pattern faster and faster over time. All of it, built on maximum 2 pieces of pattern info. I’m still exploring ways to simply the pattern even further. Fewer steps is faster read-play.

I’m sure others have their own ‘playtime’ tricks to simplify the pattern and reduce the steps between read and play.
It would be wonderful to hear them.

Thanks, Theo. I'll have to try that. You should post more often.

Punctuation would make your posts more intelligible. You might consider using some.

You might consider being more understanding of posters that do not have English as a native language. It is understandable, as written.