The contemporary Piano has 52 white keys and 36 black keys,88 in total, although some have 85.

Musical notation for all instruments uses a set of the 1st 7 letters of the alphabet, from A to G. These are found on the white keys of a piano.

The black keys are grouped in sets of 2 and 3.

The black keys are named in relation to the white keys, being both a sharp and a flat, at the same time!

This is a little confusing as each one actually has 2 names, depending on whether it is on the left of its white key or the right of the neighbouring key. In other words, the black key directly to the right of the white key ‘C’, is C Sharp, but it is also ‘D’ flat ! D Sharp is also E flat! Etc

The technical name of describing a black key with its 2 possible names is the ‘Enharmonic Equivalent’.

This rule applies to all instruments although only the piano seperates the appearance of the keys by using different coloured keys.

Pre the Piano, other keyboard instruments such as the Harpshichord and Square Piano, had the colours reversed, where the white keys were black and black keys were white.

Lucky for us that having the keys as different colours helps us to differentiate them very easily!