Piano and Keyboard Sheet Music for Beginners

Girl on piano
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by Espie Estrella
Espie Estrella is a lyricist, songwriter, and member of the Nashville Songwriters Association International.
Updated July 23, 2017

Learning how to play piano may take time but is manageable with proper training. While it is possible to learn how to play by ear, it is important for beginners to get familiar with music notes by practicing pitch and keys off of sheet music, instructional books or online learning tools. This will go hand in hand with understanding piano keys and practicing classic basics like "Do-Re-Mi." One trick to learning piano is by playing easier songs, such as Christmas carols, children's songs or music that you love and are passionate about.

Understanding and practicing sheet music for piano beginners may be a challenge at first but is a must in order to achieve playing piano at an intermediate level and beyond in the long run. Some basic piano knowledge to understand is as follows:

  • The Staff: The set of five horizontal lines and four spaces representing a musical pitch.
  • Treble Clef: The music symbol known as the G clef, located above middle C on the second-lowest line of the staff.
  • Bass Clef: The symbol of music on the fourth line of the staff indicating that it relates to the F next below middle C.
  • Music Notes: Notes are signs used in music to represent the duration and pitch of a sound.
  • Chords: Chords include a group of notes together as a form of harmony. Often, there are two or three or more chords in music which sound simultaneous together.
  • Scales: A scale is a set of musical notes ordered by frequency or pitch. In piano, there are 12 keys in an octave; thus, there are 36 scales total unless you are adding chromatic scales, which would total to 48 scales.
  • Finger Placement: How your fingers rest on specific keys. The correct hand position for piano depends on the type of finger. For example, the thumb finger may go on middle C.

Piano and Keyboard Sheet Music

A to F

G to L

M to R

S to Z

The above music sheets are from 8Notes.com. Visit them for more music sheets.