How many keys does a piano have?

How many keys on a piano keyboard?

Eighty-eight, on any full-size acoustic or digital piano. Upright or grand makes no difference: a concert grand and a battered school upright both have the same 88 keys, in the same order, starting on the same note. The size difference is in the strings and the case, not the keyboard.

Smaller keyboards are a different story. A 61-key or 49-key controller is a shortened version of the same layout, not a different instrument — it simply stops earlier at both ends.

How many white keys and how many black keys?

Fifty-two white and thirty-six black. The white keys are the notes A to G repeated over and over; the black keys are the sharps and flats between them.

The black keys are not evenly spread — they run in a repeating pattern of two, then three, then two, then three. That pattern is the single most useful thing on the keyboard, because it is how you know where you are without counting from the end. The white key immediately to the left of any group of two black keys is a C.

How many octaves is 88 keys?

Seven full octaves plus three extra notes, usually written as seven and a quarter. The keyboard starts on A0, climbs through seven complete A-to-A octaves, and then adds A sharp, B and finally C8 at the very top.

In frequency terms that is 27.5 Hz at the bottom to about 4,186 Hz at the top — from a rumble you feel as much as hear, up to a bright ping near the top of what most people can pick out as a musical pitch.

Why 88 keys, and not some rounder number?

It is where piano makers stopped, in the late 1800s. Early pianos had around 61 keys; through the 1700s and 1800s makers kept extending the range as composers kept writing past the end of it. Steinway settled on 88 in the 1880s, other makers followed, and the number stuck.

It stopped there because the extra notes stop being useful. Below A0 the strings are so slack that the ear struggles to hear a definite pitch — it reads as a growl. Above C8 the notes are so short and thin they are closer to a whistle than a tone. Composers rarely wrote there, so makers stopped building it.

Are there pianos with more than 88 keys?

A few. The Bösendorfer Imperial adds nine extra bass notes for 97 keys, and the extra keys are traditionally coloured black so a pianist does not lose their bearings. The Australian maker Stuart & Sons has built pianos with 102 and even 108 keys, the latter covering the full range of human hearing.

These are rare, expensive and almost never required. Music written for them is a short list.

How many keys do you actually need?

Fewer than you would think, to start. Most pop, rock and singer-songwriter material lives inside about four octaves in the middle of the keyboard — roughly 49 keys' worth. A 61-key keyboard covers nearly everything a beginner will play for a year or more, and it fits on a desk.

Where the full 88 earns its keep is classical repertoire, which regularly runs to both ends, and the feel of weighted keys, which cheaper short keyboards usually skip. If you are choosing: 61 keys to find out whether you like it, 88 weighted keys once you know you do.

Count them yourself

HitJam's grand piano is the full 88, A0 to C8, recorded one note at a time from a real instrument rather than synthesized. You can play it in this browser with no download and no account.

Your computer's letter keys cover two octaves at a time, and the left and right arrow keys move that window up and down the full 88 so you can reach every note, including the very bottom and very top. Plug in a MIDI keyboard and its own keys map straight onto the piano.

Questions people ask

How many black keys does a piano have?

Thirty-six, in alternating groups of two and three. The group of two always sits between C and E; the group of three between F and B.

How many white keys does a piano have?

Fifty-two. They are the notes A through G, repeated a little over seven times.

What is the lowest and highest note on a piano?

The lowest is A0 and the highest is C8. In pitch, about 27.5 Hz up to about 4,186 Hz.

How many keys does a grand piano have?

The same 88 as an upright. Grands are longer for the strings and soundboard, not for extra keys.

Is a 61-key keyboard enough to learn on?

Yes, for a long time. It covers the middle of the piano where most music sits. You will notice the missing ends only when you reach classical pieces or want weighted keys.

Why do the black keys come in twos and threes?

So the keyboard is readable by touch. Without the uneven grouping, every octave would look identical and you would have to count from one end to find a note.