The very first step in learning ducky keyboard for beginners is to be able to identify the letter notes “A” to “G” on the keyboard. This includes understanding what flats and sharps (the black keys) are.
Identifying the notes on an electronic ducky keyboard is actually very easy. It does NOT matter how many keys your keyboard has, nor what note it starts on. The technique for identification is always the same on any-sized keyboard.
First of all, the keys on your keyboard increase in pitch as you go from left to right. Note when I say left to right here (and from now on), I am referring to YOUR point of view when you sit facing the ducky keyboard. There are only 12 different notes represented by the symbols:
The symbol # represents a “sharp” note. The sharp “raises” the tone of the note letter (known as its natural) associated with it. For instance, the note A# (pronounced as A-sharp) is higher than the note A.
The symbol b represents a “flat” note. The flat “lowers” the tone of the note letter associated with it. For instance, the note Ab (pronounced as A-flat) is lower than the note A.
Every single flat has a corresponding sharp representation and vice versa. All flats/sharps are represented on your keyboard by black keys, while the naturals (non-flats/sharps) are represented by the white keys.
The 12 notes listed above appear in consecutive order on your keyboard, and repeat themselves throughout. Note it doesn’t mean your keyboard always starts with A; it just means that in any group of 12 consecutive black and white keys that start with A, you will find that they appear from left to right in the order listed above. After G# or Ab, the next key to the right on your keyboard is A, that is, the pattern simply repeats again from the beginning of the list.
Thus, there will be multiple keys on your keyboard that can be identified as “C”, with the leftmost “C” being the lowest pitch, and the rightmost “C” being the highest pitch. Essentially, notes represented by the same letter symbol sound highly similar to the human ear; the only difference is that one “C” sounds higher or lower than the other.
Now, to match a note to a key on your keyboard, you need to find some kind of pattern that distinguishes each key from all other keys. Look at your keyboard. The only pattern you’ll find is repeating groups of 2 and groups of 3 black keys.
Next, you need to know that the note “C” is always the white key to the left of a group of 2 black keys. So, find a group of 2 black keys, hit the white key directly to the left of it. You’ve just hit the note C!
All the other keys can be derived from that knowledge, using the list given above. As mentioned previously, that list shows all the notes in consecutive order from left to right on your keyboard. So now that you’ve found C, the first black key to the right of it represents C# or Db, the next (white) key represents D, and so on.
