Your first five minutes
Piano keys, one step at a time
Six short steps. One octave, not eighty-eight. Nothing to install, no score, no timer, and no moving on until you have actually played the thing. By the last step you will have played the opening of a real tune.
You cannot get this wrong and you cannot break anything. Play the wrong key and it simply tells you which one you played and points at the right one. Take as long as you like.
Your minutes here still count towards your progress page. There is just no clock watching you.
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Step 1 of 6
Find middle C
That is the whole keyboard
You just played a real tune
Everything after this is the same five notes in different orders. The practice room takes it from here: it will hold each note until your finger arrives, loop anything you fluff, and show you the same music written on a stave.
Common first questions
Things nobody tells beginners
How many keys does a piano have?
A full size piano has 88 keys: 52 white and 36 black. Most digital keyboards have 61 or 76. It makes almost no difference at the start, because everything you play in your first months sits inside one or two octaves near the middle.
Where exactly is middle C?
Look for a group of two black keys near the middle of the instrument. The white key immediately to the left of that pair is C. The one closest to the centre of the keyboard is middle C. On a keyboard with a brand name printed above the keys, middle C usually sits roughly below it.
Why are the black keys in groups of two and three?
It is a navigation aid rather than a musical rule. Twelve notes repeat over and over, and grouping the five black ones as a two and a three gives your eye and your hand a landmark. Without it, every white key would look identical.
What do the finger numbers mean?
Thumb is 1, index 2, middle 3, ring 4, little finger 5, on both hands. Sheet music writes those numbers above or below the notes to suggest which finger to use. Good fingering is what stops your hand tying itself in knots later, which is why every piece on this site shows it.
How long before I can play something recognisable?
The walkthrough above ends with the opening of Ode to Joy, so about five minutes. Playing it smoothly with both hands is more like a few weeks of short daily sessions. Short and daily beats long and occasional by a wide margin.
Do I need to read music to start?
No, and you can get a long way without it. But reading is the difference between playing the pieces someone has prepared for you and playing anything you can find. There is a free guide to reading music here with playable diagrams and a note trainer, and the practice room scores your reading separately so you can see whether it is actually improving instead of guessing.
Finished the walkthrough? The five lesson course picks up exactly here. It teaches the keyboard map, finger numbers, steps and skips, rhythm, and reading the staff, one idea at a time, each with a keyboard exercise and a ten question quiz.