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Is there any harm in making a copy of a piece not in C (or Am) and highlighting the notes that are black keys? I'm a rank beginner, just added B in the Alfred All-in-One at page 35.

Any other suggestions on learning the black keys?

Go right ahead and highlight them And don't feel a shred of guilt when you do it.

I have three degrees and have taught music for forty years ... and if you look at my scores, you will see many notes marked in. Sometimes a "brain bug" causes me to miss a note and I pencil it in. Sometimes there's an unusual hand position and I add a warning arrow.

The most important trick to learning a piece of music quickly is to NEVER play a wrong not nor use an incorrect finger from the first time you play it. This may mean playing it very slowly ... but DO it. And if a few highlights help you, go for it.

See my site for the " Best Learning Trick Ever" ... there's even a reminder chart to print out for students.

http://www.thehappypianoprofessor.wordpress.com

I thought those black ones were just to stop the white ones from rubbing together.

I would say learn circle of fifths. Learn to know which are black keys in each key. It's not really that hard. When you look at the sheet music, on the first bar you see either C (which is common or key of C) or number of sharps or flats. Then count the amount of them and refer to sharps/flats I wrote below:

For sharps:
Fat Cats Go Gown Alley Eating Birds

#: F
##: F, C
###: F, C, G
####: F, C, G, D
#####: F, C, G, D, A
######: F, C, G, D, A, E
#######: F, C, G, D, A, E, B

For Flats:
Same as sharps but in reverse

b: B
bb: B, E
bbb: B, E, A
bbbb: B, E, A, D
bbbbb: B, E, A, D, G
bbbbbb: B, E, A, D, G, C
bbbbbbb: B, E, A, D, G, C, F

See the pattern? The Flats are Sharps in reverse. Once you learn the line you can the just count how many sharps or flats you see marked in the sheet music and after practice you'll just learn. And the more you play, the better you'll learn to hear if some note is not fitting in with the rest of the notes if you play it natural when it should have been flat or sharp.

People really hate practicing scales, but it is truly worth the effort. Why? Because when you know you play a song in the key of G then your fingers automatically play all natural except for F which is sharp. This, however, takes lot of practice and is not achiever over few weeks of practicing.

The way I've been learning them is flats are to the left and sharps are to the right. If you know the note location for the white key to the left is flat and to the right is sharp. Except in the case of B and E (no sharps) and C and F (no flats).

Anita, there's no reason you should know this yet so early in your piano life, but eventually you will encounter music having e or b-sharps, or c or f flats (not to mention double flats and sharps).

I understand your current perspective of just looking at the black keys, but it might be more useful long term to just think of flats and sharps as whatever note is 1/2 step down or up (left or right) regardless of what color that note is.

Lets not forget, F is just E sharp. And E is Fflat...

Yep Jim I've seen the double flats and those notes in questions when I was looking up musical notations for the piano. I've yet to come across them in anything that I'm learning yet. I tried reading about them but haven't grasped the concept of what they're used for or how they're even played but I do know I will come across them eventually once I can move away from being a beginner.

I enjoy looking back over the pieces I've played in the past to see what I wrote on them...

Laugh of the day!

This is slightly tangential, but I had my piano teacher howling with laughter at this true story, just under a year ago. The week before, she'd set me a new piece to learn, a little sonata by Scarlatti, persuading me it was now within my reach to play it. I went home, and that evening, all the day's chores behind me, I sat down for my piano time. Had just a table lamp in the far corner, dusk falling outside, and took out the Scarlatti book and set it on the piano. I began to play, slowly, sight-reading, and all was going well until I reached the second section, read the right hand staff and played what I saw. I remember thinking that the G above middle C that I'd just played with my 5 finger didn't sound like it fitted in, and I looked a little closer. The G then promptly walked off and flew away. It was a fruit fly, which had landed on the base of a quarter-note rest sign!

time for new glasses maybe??

Good one!

Now I have this image of a maestro playing a virtuoso piece, only to have a swarm of fruit flies fly off when he is done, leaving behind a blank staff. Might make a good Supernatural episode or something.

Anyway, I've started marking up a piece I'm working on (Am, so limited black notes) and have taken the spirit of the discussion here and am doing it how I want to. Specifically, I'm using classical guitar finger identifiers, adding 'T' for left thumb. It really confuses me that piano numbers are the same by finger and not left-to-right. Whatever works, right?

Instead of coloring the notes, write # or b in front of notes that are sharp or flat. Using # and b symbols to remind yourself is totally cool. Also, if the key of E has a # in front of it, you should play the F (white F). There are two notes like this in every octave when # and b of a white key results in another white key. I'll leave it to you to find the other one.

I used to color the notes with a highlighter. But I would do it on a photocopy of the score. As soon as I was comfortable playing the piece and had it under my fingers pretty well I would go back to the original score. It's o.k. to use training wheels when you're starting to learn to play in different keys, but in my opinion you should wean yourself off of them as soon as you can. You may be surprised to find that after playing a few pieces in a particular key that way, you no longer even need the training wheels at the beginning, you're just better able to pay attention to the key signature.