Piano Glossary

Piano terms, explained simply

Music has a lot of jargon, and most of it sounds harder than it is. Here are the piano and music terms you'll run into as a beginner — plus the names of the tools inside Piano Aura — each in a sentence or two of plain English. New to playing? Start with how to learn piano or the FAQ.

Notes & the keyboard

Note: A single musical sound of a specific pitch. Each key on a piano plays one note.
Key (on the keyboard): One of the black or white levers you press to play a note. A full piano has 88 keys.
Octave: The distance from one note to the next note of the same name — for example, one C up to the next C. Notes an octave apart sound like higher or lower versions of the same note.
Middle C: The C note near the center of the keyboard. It's a common reference point beginners use to find their place.
Half step (semitone): The smallest distance between two keys — moving from any key to the very next one, black or white.
Sharp: A note raised by a half step, written with the ♯ symbol (such as F♯). It's usually the black key just above the natural note.
Flat: A note lowered by a half step, written with the ♭ symbol (such as B♭). It's usually the black key just below the natural note.
Natural: A note that is neither sharp nor flat — the white keys. The ♮ symbol is used to cancel a previous sharp or flat.
Acoustic piano: A traditional piano that makes sound mechanically: pressing a key throws a felt hammer at strings. Grand and upright pianos are both acoustic.
Grand piano: A large acoustic piano with horizontal strings. Its sound is bright, full, and expressive — the classic concert piano tone.
Upright piano: An acoustic piano with vertical strings in a tall cabinet. Warmer and more compact than a grand, common in homes.
Digital piano: An electronic instrument with weighted keys that imitates an acoustic piano's sound and feel, often with extra instrument voices and a headphone jack.
Velocity: How hard a key is struck, which controls how loud that note sounds. Striking softly or firmly is how a pianist shapes expression.

Rhythm & timing

Beat: The steady pulse you'd tap your foot to. It's the basic unit of musical time.
Tempo: The speed of the music — how fast or slow the beats go. Usually given in BPM.
BPM (beats per minute): A number that measures tempo: how many beats happen in one minute. A higher BPM means faster music.
Metronome: A tool that clicks a steady beat at a tempo you choose, so you can practice keeping time. Piano Aura includes an adjustable metronome.
Time signature: Two stacked numbers (like 4/4) that tell you how many beats are in each bar and which note value counts as one beat.
Bar (measure): A small, equal segment of music holding a set number of beats. Bars are separated by vertical bar lines.
Rest: A silence in the music — a gap where you don't play — with its own timed length.
Click track: A metronome click played (and sometimes recorded) alongside your playing to keep everything in time.

Harmony & melody

Chord: Three or more notes played together. Chords are the basic building blocks of harmony — for example, a C major chord.
Chord progression: A sequence of chords played in order. Most songs are built from a short progression that repeats.
Root note: The note a chord is named after and built on. The root of a C major chord is C.
Major: A chord or scale with a bright, resolved, often 'happy' sound.
Minor: A chord or scale with a darker, moodier, often 'sad' sound.
Scale: A set sequence of notes moving up or down in pitch, such as the C major scale. Scales are the raw material melodies and chords are drawn from.
Arpeggio: The notes of a chord played one after another instead of all at once — a chord 'rolled out.'
Interval: The distance in pitch between two notes, such as an octave or a fifth.
Key (musical): The group of notes a piece is built around, named after its home note and quality — for example, the key of C major.
Melody: The main tune of a song — the part you'd hum or sing.
Bassline: The lowest line of notes in a piece, usually played by the left hand, that anchors the harmony.

Technique & reading

Dynamics: How loud or soft the music is, and the changes between. On piano, dynamics come from how hard you strike the keys.
Legato: Playing notes smoothly and connected, with no audible gap between them.
Staccato: Playing notes short and detached, with clear gaps between them.
Sustain pedal (damper pedal): The pedal that lets notes keep ringing after you lift your fingers, instead of stopping immediately. In Piano Aura it's an on-screen toggle.
Transpose: To shift an entire piece up or down in pitch into a different key, keeping the same shape and intervals.
Sheet music: Written musical notation showing which notes to play and when, printed on a staff. You can play piano without reading it.
Staff (stave): The five horizontal lines that sheet music is written on. A note's vertical position on the staff shows its pitch.
Sight-reading: Playing a piece of written music on the spot, the first time you see it.
Playing by ear: Working out music by listening and hunting for the notes on the keys, without reading notation.

In Piano Aura

Play Along: A Piano Aura mode where notes fall down the screen toward a line and you press each key as it lands — learning a song by timing and pattern, with no sheet music.
Freestyle keyboard: A full on-screen keyboard in Piano Aura with nothing layered on top — for improvising, exploring, and recording your own ideas.
Create Music: Piano Aura's multi-track mode for composing: record layers, edit individual notes as blocks on a timeline, and turn the result into a shareable track.
Chord Builder: A Piano Aura tool that builds a chord shape for you from a root note and a quality (major, minor, seventh, and so on), so you can play progressions without memorizing every voicing.
Aura: The customizable visual atmosphere — colors, effects, and mood — that you wrap around your performance in the app.
Colored note labels: An option in Piano Aura that gives each note its own color on the keys, making them easier to tell apart while you're learning.