A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the interval of an octave. Depressing a key on the keyboard causes the instrument to produce sounds, either by mechanically striking a string or tine (piano, electric piano, clavichord); plucking a string (harpsichord); causing air to flow through a pipe (organ); or strike a bell (carillon). On electric and electronic keyboards, depressing a key connects a circuit (Hammond organ, digital piano, synthesizer). Since the most commonly encountered keyboard instrument is the piano, the keyboard layout is often referred to as the "piano keyboard".
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The twelve notes of the Western musical scale are laid out with the lowest note on the left; the longer keys (for the seven "natural" notes of the C major scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B) jut forward. Because these keys were traditionally covered in ivory they are often called the white notes orwhite keys. The keys for the remaining five notes which are not part of the C major scale (namely C♯/D♭, D♯/E♭, F♯/G♭, G♯/A♭, A♯/B♭) (see Sharp and Flat) are raised and set back. Because these keys receive less wear, they are often made of black colored wood and called the black notes orblack keys. The pattern repeats at the interval
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of an octave.The arrangement of longer keys for C major with intervening, shorter keys for the intermediate semitones dates to the 15th century. Many keyboard instruments dating from before the nineteenth century, such as harpsichords and pipe organs, have a keyboard with the colours of the keys reversed: the white notes are made of ebony and the black notes are covered with softer white bone. A few electric and electronic instruments from the 1960s and subsequent decades have also done this; Vox's electronic organs of the 1960s, Farfisa's FAST portable organs, Hohner's Clavinet L, one version of Korg's Poly-800 synthesizer and Roland's digital harpsichords.Some 1960s electronic organs used reverse colors or gray sharps or naturals to indicate the lower part(s) of a split or 'broken' keyboard: one which is divided into two parts, each of which produces a different Registration or sound. Such keyboards allow melody and contrasting accompaniment to be played without the expense of a second manual and were a regular feature in Spanish and some English organs of the renaissance and baroque. The break was between middle C and C-sharp, or outside of Iberia between B and C. Broken keyboards reappeared in 1842 with theharmonium, the split occurring at e4/f4.The reverse-colored keys on Hammond organs such as the B3, C3 and A100 are latch-style radio buttons for selecting pre-set sounds.
Playing techniques
Despite their apparent similarity, keyboard instruments of different types require different techniques. For instance, a piano will produce a louder note the faster the key is pressed. On the other hand, the volume and timbre of the sound on the pipe organ are dictated by the flow of air from the bellows and the stops selected by the player; in the harpsichord the strings are plucked and the volume of the note is not perceptibly varied by using a different touch on the keyboard. Players of these instruments must use other techniques to color the sound. Thearranger keyboard uses preset drum rhythms that respond to chords played in the left hand by the instrumentalist, with other buttons and switches used to change rhythms and even the voice of the instrument.
Playing a keyboard instrument can prove to be a challenging task; even though the layout is quite simple and all notes are easily accessible, some music puts high demand on the performer's skills to play accurately and in tempo, and beginners will often struggle to produce a passable rendition of a simple piece due to technique deficiency, which takes training to improve. The sequence of movements executed by the playing hand can be almost arbitrarily complicated, with some possible problems being wide-spanned chords, which can be problematic for people with small hands, chords that require unusual hand positions which can initially be uncomfortable or even painful, and also fast scales, trills and arpeggios.
Playing instruments with dynamic keyboards (i.e. ones that respond to varying force with which the key is struck) may require independence of the fingers so that some fingers are able to strike harder while others play more softly. Players need to learn to coordinate two hands and use them independently. Most music is written for two hands; typically the right hand plays the melody in the treble range, while the left plays an accompaniment of bass notes and chords in the bass range. There exist pieces of non-trivial music written for the left hand alone, e.g. several of the Godowsky's 53 Studies on Chopin's Etudes and Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. In music that uses counterpoint technique, both hands play different melodies at the same time.
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