Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum the key of C

Because it has no black keys it is thought to be the easiest scale, but Chopin actually thought it was the most difficult one and first taught his students other scales!

I read similar stories about Chopin disliking the key of C, and lots of other masters, teachers and players saying its un-natural for the hands, etc. Funny, I don't see a problem with it at all. Maybe there is prejudice because it is so often used in "pop music"?

John

I heard that as well. My question is, what is the most natural key on piano then? I personally find nothing easier to hit than white notes!

I personally don't find it difficult, but I prefer other keys. I actually like the sound of black keys!

what kind of keyboard do you have?

The idea is, your hand doesn't naturally and comfortably fit on it as much as other keys.

E major and B/Cb major are considered to be the most suited to a human hand because the long fingers fall on the black keys while the thumb and pinky fall on the white keys further back.

There is some truth to this, of course, but it depends more at a higher level and with faster pieces. At a slow tempo or in more simple songs, it wouldn't make too much of a difference.

I'm still at the eternal-beginner and C-is-easiest stage. It's just that the piano keyboard is already diatonic, and the ONE ready-made major scale is... C. With a chromatic instrument like guitar, suppose each scale would be the same pattern, say C# everything shifted one fret.

C makes intervallic reading very... natural and un...accidental. If most beginner/intermediate methods insist (rightly, I think) on intervallic reading as an addition to "absolute-position" reading, then how they'll get intervallic reading easy in the eyes-to-little-conscious-brain-to-fingers for other scales ? say the 3-4 # or b where's the most 'white/black change' (information entropy).

Now I can read and play (sort of) reasonably up to 2# and 2b. But the extra layer of processing does slow the whole process, sometimes throwing off rhythm. That's why for me it works with slow pieces (Adagio in Gm, Canon in D (except the quick middle)...)

I don't think most method books stick to just C. They may in the very beginning, but G and F are added rather soon, and what follows them are a variety of other keys usually up to 4 sharps/flats (actually, the flats are less emphasized in method books for some odd reason).

I personally start students in repertoire as soon as possible, and they also read almost everything at their level even if they won't get it up to performance or even playable level. This insures that they will experience more than just C, and that's how you ACTUALLY learn scales and intervals.

If all you care about are major sounds (those found on non-accidental notes of C major), then sure, you're fine. But there's more to it than that. And while it may seem daunting at first, the sharps and flats don't actually make the music more difficult later on.

I suggest transposing as often as you can, actually, which was suggested somewhere in this thread. A great skill. I think there's a story about Czerny taking Liszt to Beethoven. Beethoven had him play a few things, and then asked him to them in all keys. After he saw that Liszt was able to do it, Beethoven commented that this student was a gifted pianist and musician.

I care about minor sounds too. Those found from A to G ;-)

What about the chords? G#

Trust me, I'm not just gonna say it's easy. But, I will say it's not as hard as some people think.

I've not encountered yet much G#, but enough of E Major occasional arpeggios (E-G#-B) in pieces in A minor. At first I've just found by ear that fits; then figured that's E Major.

As an example of in-builtness of scales: I can do minutes of Child-in-Time-like improvised doodling-around with fragments of scales and arpeggios based on A minor and G Major (almost never getting to F#, so for this purpose just as 'white' as C) - as the original was ;-)
But I cannot yet, say with A Major (3#). The blackening-for-some-but-not-all-degrees definitely disrupts the fluidity of the ear>hand link.

The only trouble I have with different keys is sometimes I forget which key I'm in. Bbs don't sound so good in G.

G# is part of a minor. So is F# at times.

And the "blackening" of the keys in A major is EXACTLY what makes the ear think you're in C!

Blackening where it should keeps the interval structure TTSTTTS so yes, the 'ear' (+analyzer in brain) recognizes a major key, any major key.
That is, if one has 'normal' relative pitch in the analyzer. I have some absolute pitch too, but I feel the relative/intervallic is stronger and they do not interfere. So that's not the source of the stumbling.

My problem is more with each different pattern of selective blackening in 'fingers' (automatic motor control of brain). Some time ago I liked Keystring's image of "12 different keyboards" but my quick link hasn't reached yet that stage. The working keyboard is C. Maybe G or F.
Blackening the required fingers _and only those_ is still an overlayed operation, takes time (not much, but ~0.2 seconds is much in music) and, as I said, disrupts the mental-image ('ear') > fingers link. It's one thing to think "now I'm playing the A Major scale" (which I can) and another to read a moderately complex piece in A Major, even if I know it very well 'by ear'.

Imagine how would you drive if you had one of 12 different cars, with different patterns of controls (say, in one 1st gear is ahead and 2nd is back, 3rd ahead and to the right etc. - the others are in other combination). Intention is the same, execution has to be different.
When I was younger (below driving age) my father showed me the Trabant (East German small car), which had a 'crooked handle' gear-changer near the steering wheel, with angular directions the reverse of most cars. Fortunately I didn't practice much on that ;-)

This is actually why I am so happy my friend/teacher introduced me to The Music Tree series (Frances Clark). From the get go it has you moving all over the keyboard and using many types of fingering, no hand position nonsense. Not C-based at all

Having learned by other methods before, I can see what a superior method it is for someone like me who wants to be comfortable playing any number of types of pieces and not stuck in a sequential level progression. It builds really strong skills without boxing itself in.

For some reason it is a really unknown curriculum, but having done some Alfred's, Bastien, and Suzuki I can say it beats the pants off of all of them (for me, as an adult).