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The piano is an instrument that offers the musician eighty-eight musical pitches organized in ascending order
of pitch. The lowest note is at the far left of the instrument, the highest note on the far right. These 88 pitches,
generally speaking, are all the ones our human ears can recognize as musical sounds. Pitches lower than the bottom
note of a piano: the low 'A', are so low as to sound like a rumble; any note above the highest note on a piano. the
high C, can be heard only by plucky dogs. The piano organizes these pitches in a seemingly arbitrary but ultimately
logical system. When these notes are combined in various rhythmic and harmonic patterns they produce music as
diverse as that of Mozart, Elton John and Ray Charles. Let's look at the layout a bit. Here is a small (17-key) section
of a standard 88-key piano keyboard:
The keys on a keyboard are a half-step apart. What is a half step? First of all, it's just a word. Some music
people call a half-step a semi-tone (as opposed to a whole tone). No matter what we call it, it is the smallest
DIFFERENCE in pitch between two notes that we can hear. The distance between one key and the next adjacent key
is a half-step. The shark theme in "Jaws" consists of two notes a half-step apart, repeated over and over. If you don't
remember how this sounds, rent "Jaws." When the shark shows up you hear these two notes. You'll never forget it!
Here are some facts about the keys on a keyboard that may seem obvious but research has shown that not everyone
knows these facts: