Keys, fingers, EZ-310

Four bars you can't play yet

This is the opening of Beethoven's Ode to Joy in an easy arrangement: the right hand carries the tune, the left holds low notes. Press “Listen”, and a cursor runs along the notes.

The first phrase of the Ode. You play all of it, with both hands, in lesson 1.

You probably know the tune, but you can't play it yet: you don't know which key to start on, which finger to use, or what the marks on the lines mean. The vertical lines split the notes into four parts, called bars (measures); you learn to read them in lesson 1.

Today is everything that comes before the notes: where each white key lies, how to sit and how to number your fingers. At the end you play this phrase with your right hand by finger numbers, before you read a single note. You also get the instrument ready: the EZ-310 on its piano sound, the cable checked, and the site taught to hear your playing.

Two black, three black

Look at the keyboard of the EZ-310 or at the keys below. The white keys run in an unbroken row, but the black ones come in groups: two, three, two, three, all the way to the end. These groups are how you find a key. The first one worth learning is C: the white key just left of the two black ones.

A stretch of the keyboard. Both Cs are marked: each lies just left of two black keys.

The rule works only because the black keys are uneven. See what it is like without that. Below are thirteen keys in a row, taken from somewhere on the keyboard; find a C among them. First all the keys look alike, then the dark ones come evenly, every other key, and then as on a piano.

Keep pressing until you hit it; “New row” starts somewhere else. Your tries are counted separately for each kind.

Without the two-and-three pattern, finding C is a guess, or you count keys from the end: the C where your thumb goes for the Ode is the twenty-fifth key from the left on the EZ-310, counting the black keys too.

From C the other white keys take their names in order: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and after B comes C again. These seven note names are easy to tie to the groups:

• at two black keys: C on the left, D between them, E on the right;
• at three black keys: F on the left, G and A between them, B on the right.

The seven white keys with their names. Press them in turn: the sound rises from left to right.

The black keys have names too, but the first black key in the course's pieces comes only in lesson 3. For now, find the white ones.

A note is named: press it. Any key with that name will do, and the keyboard has several.

The same for the three black keys. Find the group first, then the key in it.

Octaves: the same note, only higher

Press a C, then the next C to the right. It is the same note, only higher: the two Cs sound so alike that they share a name. Listen to four Cs in a row, from low to high: four Cs.

The twelve keys from C to B, seven white and five black, are an octave. At the next C the next octave begins, with the same seven names. So a letter alone does not say which key you mean: the keyboard has several Cs, and you need the octave as well.

The site and most method books add the octave as a number after the letter: a letter and a number. The octave from middle C up to the B above it is number 4, the one below it 3, the one above 5. C4 is middle C, G3 is the G below it. In the course you will often see the two together: “middle C (C4)”.

Octave	Keys	On the EZ-310
2	C2–B2	all of it
3	C3–B3	all of it
4, from middle C	C4–B4	all of it
5	C5–B5	all of it
6	C6–B6	all of it
7	C7	only the C

Now a stricter exercise: you need the key in exactly the octave named. Under each C on the screen its name is written: C3, C4, C5. Find the C of that octave by its label and count up from it.

Middle C on the EZ-310

The EZ-310 has 61 keys: 36 white and 25 black, five full octaves and one more C at the top. That makes six Cs. The third from the left is middle C, C4, a little left of the keyboard's centre. Almost everything in this course starts there: in the Ode, your right thumb goes on it.

The whole keyboard of the EZ-310. All six Cs are marked, middle C brighter than the rest.

Under the keys middle C has two names, C3 and (C4). It is not a misprint: it is one and the same key, but Yamaha numbers the octaves differently from the site. There is more on this in the EZ-310 section.

How many C keys does the EZ-310 have?

Five, one in each octave Six Seven, one for each note name

Five full octaves give five Cs, and one more C comes last, at the very top: 5 × 12 + 1 = 61 keys. That is why middle C is the third C from the left but the fourth from the right.

How to sit

Hands tire and tense up from an awkward posture more often than from the notes, so start there.

• Height. Put your hands on the keys: your forearm, from elbow to wrist, lies about level with the keyboard or a little above it. If your elbows are below the keys and your wrists bend upwards, the seat is too low: add a cushion. A stand for the EZ-310, the L-2C, is sold separately; it is in the list of accessories in the manual.
• Distance. Your elbows hang freely a little in front of your body, not pressed to your sides. Reaching for the keys? Move closer. Elbows in your stomach? Move back.
• Where to sit. Opposite the middle of the keyboard, roughly in line with middle C.
• Feet and back. Feet on the floor, back straight but not stiff, shoulders down.

Now the hand. Let your arms hang by your sides: the fingers curve slightly by themselves. That is how they go on the keys, rounded, as if a small ball were under your palm. You press with the pad near the very tip, and the thumb lies on its key along its side. The wrist stays level: it neither sags below the keys nor humps up above them.

Finger numbers

Look at the lesson's wall again: above the first note of the tune is a small figure 3. It is the number of the finger that plays the note. The count is the same for both hands: 1 is the thumb, 2 the index finger, 3 the middle finger, 4 the ring finger, 5 the little finger. Finger numbers in music are called fingering.

Your hands are mirror images. Put both on the table, palms down: the right thumb is on the left, the left thumb on the right. So on the keyboard the right hand counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 from left to right, upwards, and the left hand from right to left, downwards.

Right hand: the thumb (1) on middle C, the little finger (5) on G. Left hand: the little finger (5) on C3, the thumb (1) on G3.

Tap your fingers on the table, saying the numbers aloud: first the right hand, then the left, then both at once. The two hands have the same numbers, but they run in opposite directions.

Your left hand is on the keys. Where is its finger 1?

On the left, towards the low notes On the right, towards the middle of the keyboard The left hand counts from the little finger, so 1 is the little finger

Finger 1 is always the thumb, in both hands. The hands are mirror images: the left thumb points right, towards the middle of the keyboard, and the little finger left, towards the low notes.

Now on the keys. Right hand: the thumb on middle C, the other fingers on the next white keys to the right, one finger to a key. The exercise names a number, and you press the key under that finger; only the thumb's number is shown. The site sees the key but not the finger, so keep an eye on the finger yourself.

The same with the left hand: the little finger on C3, the thumb on G3. Here the right hand's habit easily trips you up: finger 2 of the left hand is on F, not on D.

If the hand lands in the wrong place

Finger numbers tell you which finger plays, not where your hand lies. Here is the Ode's first phrase by finger numbers, bar by bar: 3 3 4 5, 5 4 3 2, 1 1 2 3, 3 2 2. These numbers are right only if your right thumb is on middle C. What if you put it on another key?

Go through all the keys in turn. From C3 and from C5 you get the same Ode, lower or higher: only the octave is different. From D, E and A the tune breaks, and the widget marks the notes that sound wrong. From F two notes change, the ones finger 4 plays. And from G the Ode survives, only higher.

The reason is on the keyboard: there is no black key between E and F or between B and C, but there is one between every other pair of neighbouring white keys. The steps along the white keys are uneven, so the same fingers starting from different keys play different tunes. From G the steps happen to match those from C; do not rely on that kind of luck.

The first phrase by numbers

Now play it yourself. Right hand: the thumb on middle C, the other fingers on D, E, F and G. Play the numbers in order, at any tempo. The exercise marks a wrong key in red and waits for the right one.

A mistake shows you a place where your fingers don't know the way yet. Play that spot slowly two or three times, then start the phrase again. When it goes cleanly, play it once more, counting aloud “one, two, three, four” for each bar, that is, for each group between the lines. In the first three bars each figure gets one count. In the last bar finger 3 holds for a count and a half, finger 2 for half a count, and finger 2 again for two counts. The “Listen” button plays the phrase at the tempo of the wall.

You will see how such a rhythm is written in notes in lesson 1: there you read this phrase from the page, and your fingers will already know the way.

EZ-310: switch on, set up, connect

Power, piano, volume

The [Standby/On] button switches the instrument on; to switch it off, hold the button down for about a second. The EZ-310 has 650 sounds, from the grand piano to drum kits, and each one is a Voice: that is the manual's word, and it numbers them. The course needs the first, 001 “Live! Concert Grand Piano”, the concert grand. The [PORTABLE GRAND] button selects it and resets various settings to their defaults as well. The manual does not say which Voice the instrument starts with, so begin every practice session with [PORTABLE GRAND].

The [MASTER VOLUME] knob sets the volume: start in the middle and adjust by ear. For quiet practice there is the [PHONES/OUTPUT] jack: when a headphone plug is in it, the instrument's speakers switch off by themselves.

Power, piano, volume

C3 for Yamaha, C4 on the site

Yamaha calls middle C “C3”: that is how it is labelled in the picture of the keyboard in the EZ-310 manual. The site and most method books call the same key C4. It is one key, and only the number differs: Yamaha's is one lower. The lowest key of the EZ-310 is C1 for Yamaha and C2 on the site; the top key is C6 and C7.

The course always uses the site's names, and when it quotes the manual or the instrument's display, it gives the site's name alongside. When in doubt, say “middle C”: that name means the same key everywhere.

The USB cable

The EZ-310 connects to a computer through the [USB TO HOST] socket on the back panel. There is no cable in the box; the manual asks for a USB cable of the AB type, shorter than three metres, and warns that USB 3.0 cables will not work.

Over the cable the instrument sends the computer everything you play, in MIDI: which key went down, how hard, when it was released. MIDI carries no sound, only messages about notes, and that is why the site can check what you played and when. It works the other way too: the EZ-310 plays the notes the site sends with its own sound.

Chrome, Edge, Opera and Firefox can receive MIDI. Safari cannot, and on an iPhone or iPad no browser has MIDI, so there the site cannot hear the EZ-310 even over a cable. You can do the course without a cable: you play on the on-screen keys or the computer keyboard, and repeat on the instrument beside you, checking by ear.

Check the connection. Connect the EZ-310 to the computer and switch it on, press “Connect MIDI” on the card or in the bar at the top of the page, and allow the browser access. Then press the third C from the left on the instrument.

The card shows what the site heard: the note, its names on the site and for Yamaha, its place among the 61 keys, the velocity, how hard you pressed, from 1 to 127, and the MIDI channel (channels come up in lesson 5). If no notes arrive, check that the cable is in [USB TO HOST] and the instrument is on, then reload the page.

Where the sound comes from

With the EZ-310 connected, every note you play sounds twice: the instrument sounds by itself, and the site, receiving the note over the cable, repeats it with its own piano, from the computer's speakers and a moment later. To stop that, choose “From the EZ-310” on the card. The site stops repeating the notes from the instrument and sends the “teacher's” part, the other hand that the site plays in the exercises with notes, to the EZ-310. Your choice is remembered.

“From the site” is for playing without a cable, or in the computer's headphones. If the EZ-310 is connected at the same time, turn its [MASTER VOLUME] down, or you will hear everything twice.

Sound delay

The sound of the EZ-310 is made inside the instrument. The site's sound, your notes, the clicks and the “teacher's” part, goes through the browser, the sound card and the speakers or headphones. With wired headphones this takes a few hundredths of a second, but wireless ones often add 150–250 ms, and that you notice. Try for yourself what such a latency does.

Your notes sound with the delay you choose. Try playing the Ode's first phrase by numbers.

At 250 ms your fingers start waiting for the sound, and the phrase falls apart, though you know it by heart. At 40 ms you hardly notice anything. So for playing with the site, wired headphones or speakers are better, and with the cable, the sound from the EZ-310.

Latency also spoils the marks. In the “In tempo” mode the site compares the timing of your notes with its clicks: if the clicks reach you late, you honestly play along with them, and the site sees you as late. So the latency is measured once. Press “Start calibration” and tap along with the clicks on whatever you will play with: Space, the “Tap” button or a key, and with the cable, a key of the EZ-310. The site remembers the average gap and allows for it. Changed headphones or speakers? Measure again.

This setting is shared with the course “Note by Note”: if you calibrated there, the same value is already set here.

What next

Now you can find any white key by the groups of black ones, you know the octaves and where middle C is on the EZ-310, you can sit at the keys and number the fingers of both hands, and you have already played the first phrase of the Ode by numbers. The instrument sounds like a piano, the site hears it, and the latency is measured.

Check yourself at the keys:

• Find all six Cs on the EZ-310 without counting keys, by the two black ones alone.
• Find middle C and say both its names: the site's and Yamaha's.
• Play 3 3 4 5, 5 4 3 2, 1 1 2 3, 3 2 2 with your right hand from middle C, counting aloud, and then from C5: the same tune, only higher.
• Left hand: the little finger on C3. Play 5 4 3 2 1 and back, saying the numbers aloud.
• Without a cable: on the lesson's wall choose “Right” and a tempo of 60%, press “Listen” and play along on the computer keyboard, where A S D F G stand for fingers 1–5.

The next wall is the same Ode, eight bars now, with the note names under them. In lesson 1 you learn to read these notes without the labels and play them from the page.

The note names are under the notes. In lesson 1 the labels go.