You cannot find all information about keyboard chords, scales and fingerings in a single book. Western music books are being sold in parts. You are bound to purchase part two or three. The most important thing you can do is to make a commitment to learn the piano or keyboard. This means putting in the effort over the course of several weeks to learn and practice the theory taught on these pages. This article was initiated along with a set of articles on Western and Indian form of Music. This is an attempt to explain things to a newbie who has just got a keyboard and wants to romance with it. In my opinion, both Western and Indian music forms are complex subjects and any simplification will indeed be a tough task. Frankly, my expertise in both forms is limited and through my constant exposure over the period of years I have learnt few basics of both. It is indeed a great pleasure to share the knowledge that I have acquired from different resources and tried to compile this comprehensive book.

Listening to music is a pleasure that most get from birth. This increases to a great extent when you understand the basics and appreciate. Music can be defined as collection of small pieces of regular sound played at predefined time interval. An ingenious collection of these notes played over a period of time results in a melody. Hence both western and Indian or for that matter any form of regular music has a set of basic notes from which they grow, something like alphabets. There is a new concept evolving called “computer music” where a musician explores beyond the basic notes that are defined in music. In cakewalk and Cubase SX3 it is possible to explore beyond basics.

Let us see more on Notes - “Notes” what are they? Note can be technically explained as a sound frequency. Actually the sound that is produced when you press a key on musical keyboard is called as “NOTE”. It does not matter if you press the white key or the black key. Each key plays a predefined frequency. The note gets its shape by the amount of time you hold down the key and release it. This is called the note length or duration. Hence to make a “tune” or a “melody” or “song” you should play a bunch of these notes at proper duration and length. Before going more into it, let us explore the keyboard.
 
Sound Waves
 
Musical notes, like all sounds, are made of sound waves. The sound waves that make musical notes are very evenly spaced waves, and the qualities of these regular waves - for example how big they are or how far apart they are - affects the sound of the note. A note can be high or low, depending on how often (how frequently) one of its waves arrives at your ear. When scientists and engineers talk about how high or low a sound is, they talk about its frequency. Frequency is the number of cycles per second. The higher the frequency of a note, the higher it sounds. They can measure the frequency of notes, and like most measurements, these will be numbers, like "440 vibrations per second."
 
All sound waves are traveling at about the same speed, which is the speed of sound. So waves with a shorter wavelength arrive at your ear, quicker than longer waves.

Since the sounds are traveling at about the same speed, the one with the shorter wavelength arrives our ear faster because it has a higher frequency, or pitch. In other words, it sounds higher. The word that musicians use for frequency is pitch. The shorter the wavelength, the higher the frequency and the higher the pitch of the sound. In other words, short waves sound high and long waves sound low.
 
Sound Pitches

The interval between two notes is the distance between the two pitches - in other words, how much higher or lower one note is than the other. This concept is so important that it is almost impossible to talk about scales, chords, without referring to intervals. So if you want to learn western music theory, it would be a good idea to spend some time getting comfortable with the concepts and practicing identifying intervals.

Scientists usually describe the distance between two pitches in terms of the difference between their frequencies. Musicians find it more useful to talk about interval. Intervals can be described using half steps and whole steps. For example, you can say, B natural is a half step below C natural, or  "E flat is a step and a half above C natural". But when we talk about larger intervals in the major/minor system, there is a more convenient and descriptive way to name them.

Naming Intervals
 
The first step in naming the interval is to find the distance between the notes. Count every space in between the notes. This gives you the number for the intervals. To find the interval, count spaces between two notes as well as all the spaces in between. The interval between B and D is a third. The interval between A and F is a sixth. Seconds, thirds, sixths, and sevenths can be major intervals or minor intervals. The minor interval is always a half step smaller than the major interval.
 
* Major and Minor Intervals1 half-step = minor second (m2)
* 2 half-steps = major second (M2)
* 3 half-steps = minor third (m3)
* 4 half-steps = major third (M3)
* 8 half-steps = minor sixth (m6)
* 9 half-steps = major sixth (M6)
* 10 half-steps = minor seventh (m7)
* 11 half-steps = major seventh (M7)
 
Tonal Center
 
A scale starts with the note that names the key. This note is the tonal center of that key, the note where music in that key feels "at rest". It is also called the tonic, and it's the "do-re-mi". For example, music in the key of A major almost always ends on an A major chord, the chord built on the note A. It often also begins on that chord, returns to that chord often, and features a melody and a bass line that also return to the note A often enough that listeners will know where the tonal center of the music is, even if they don't realize that they know it.
 
Learning the notes of the Keyboard and Piano in desi style

Before we can learn how to play scales chords it is vital that we learn the notes on keyboard and how they relate to each other. The best way to describe the notes on the keyboard is by comparing them to the notes of the alphabets. The first seven notes of the keyboard are ( A - B - C - D -E - F - G ). Each note differs with each other in sound. Below are all seven notes of the keyboard. Notice that the seven notes of keyboard repeat themselves over and over again. That the notes sound the same but the pitch differs. For example if you play C and move to the right until you find the next C, you will notice that if you play them simultaneously, both notes sounds the same but one is higher than the other.
 
Middle C marks the center of the keyboard. As you will notice the C Major is the easiest and simplest scale of the twelve. In C Major Scale you may play the song "ik pyar kaa nagma hai". It consists all the white keys from any starting C to the next. C. The diagram 1 below represents the C major scale in all three octaves. C major can be written as ( C maj, CM ).

A standard semi professional music keyboard has 48 keys. You will see 4 sets of 12 keys and total 48 keys. One of these 12 set of notes is technically called an octave. Western music is based on logarithmic division. An octave is divided into 12 equal intervals such that the logarithm of the frequency ratio of two neighboring intervals is the same. This interval is called a semi tone. There are 12 mutually exclusive half notes in the system. In Indian music “Sa” note is based on your reference note or the key you selected as starting point. After Sa the first note will be ‘Re’ komal and then ‘Re’ tiver and so on. You can start playing Indian or Pakistani song from any key and the first note will become ‘Sa’ elsewhere. The traditional Indian music is based on a 22 keys per octave. In Western music Middle C octave that is also called the Middle C scale etc starts from the first white key set to 240 Hz. On your keyboard, middle C octave is located somewhere near the middle. Once you figured out where this octave is, you can quickly identify the first key of this octave (set to 240 Hz). And because we know the ratio of the key frequencies now we can pretty much compute the frequency generated by any key. You will also notice that the keyboard has about three to four octaves (between 36 to 48 keys. The upper octave, starting from 480 Hz is the Upper C octave and the lower octave starting at 120 Hz is the Lower C octave etc.
 
Note: ‘Sa’ does not “map” always onto ‘C’ or ‘C#’. It could start at F and still form a S R G M PD N sargam. In the western music system the ‘C’ note” itself does not change and scales denote the pitch changes. Thus Western music system has an “absolute” (fixed) naming for the keys whereas in Indian the notation is “relative. Whereas in desi style lessons we have assumed Sa of Indian to C# of western, the first black key. A Scale is a set of 7 notes in a proper order and intervals or a scale is set of 7 notes with predefined intervals. The distance between each note is called as interval. It is to be noted that scales and ragas are not same. Apart from having seven different notes in both western and Indian music, there are not many similarities. There is a difference between an Indian scale and western scale. Indian scale is called a thaat. Just going across “C” to “C” in a Western scale can be called as a major scale. Only few Indian scales are similar to western scales. Ragas have many dimensions to it. First, it has an emotional overtone. A raga can have 5 or more notes with intervals. This kind of reduction of notes in a scale is called as modes in Western classical music. Experts believe proper training is required to play Ragas fluently. This comes by good practice and understanding of notes usage. A western trained top-notch musician will be able to play a phrase of 1/64 note at a good speed but will find it difficult to play raga without proper training.

Finger Numbers
 
The left and right hand fingers are numbered as shown in the above diagram. The thumb of each hand is counted as the first finger and has the number one. When a flat sign is placed after a note like Bb (B Flat) it means that you play the key immediately to the left side of note B. This note Bb will be black key just to left side and above the note B. So, any black key always have sharp and flat notes. When a sharp sign is placed after any note like C# it means that you play the key immediately just to its right. Note that C# is always a black key just after the white key “C” and B Flat key is black key just before white key “B”.
From right hand in middle octave and from note of middle ‘C” we play melody with our right hand and from left of Middle ‘C’ and in left octave of keyboard we play chords with our left hand.

 How to find Middle C
 
The first note you learn to play is Middle ‘C’. Middle ‘C’ is the note closest to the middle of your keyboard. Place a ‘C’ sticker on the Middle C note. Play middle C with your right hand thumb. In the above picture of Keyboard we cannot show all 48 or 61 keys of a keyboard and we showed only left octave middle octave and part of right octave of the keyboard. 

Sharp Notes:

C# (C Sharp) means the note just after “C” note. D# is the note just after D and E# is the note just after “E” note and so on. Here C, D, & E notes are white keys. See diagram 3 shown above for sharp notes only and diagram 4 shown below for flat notes only.
 
Flat Notes:

Db (D flat) means the note just before note D that is here a black note. Eb (E flat) is the note just before note E and so one. See Diagram 4 above. There are also two notes Cb (C flat) and Fb (flat), which are notes just before C and F, which are white keys only. Note Cb is just attached to the left side of note C and Note Fb is just attached to the left side of note F.

Sharp & Flat Notes Showing Together

            Left Octave                 Middle Octave                             Right Octave
 
Notes of C# and Db are on the same key or we can say one note at the same time can be sharp or flat. If we want to locate C# note then it is the note just after note ‘C’ and when we want to locate Db (D flat) then it is the note just before note ‘D’. In other words we can name flat or sharp note at the same time to a single note. In the above given diagram 4 we have shown both sharp and flat keys together. Any black key may be sharp or flat.

The best way to describe the notes on the keyboard is by comparing them to the notes of the alphabets. The first seven notes of the keyboard are ( A - B - C - D -E - F - G ). Each note differs with each other in sound. We start from the note “C” as C, D, E, F, G, A, B, for playing keyboards in western style.

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