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A four-week plan for learning piano with letter notes, and then taking the letters away

By Taekyung Lee · 2026-10-10

Teachers are divided on letter notes. The case against is real: a student who reads letters never reads the staff. The case for is also real: a student who cannot play anything for a month quits. The way through is to use the letters as scaffolding and remove them on a schedule. This is the schedule we suggest, using songs that are on this site and free.

Before you start

Find middle C on your keyboard: the C nearest the middle, just left of the pair of black keys closest to the centre. Everything in weeks one and two sits within an octave of it. Put the right thumb on middle C and let the fingers fall on D, E, F, G. That five-finger position is the whole hand for the first week. Sit so your forearms are level with the keys; a chair that is too low makes everything harder.

Week 1: five fingers, letters on

Pieces: Mary Had a Little Lamb, London Bridge, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. All three stay inside C to G or C to A in the right hand and have one chord per bar in the left.

Right hand only for the first three days, reading the red letters. Say the letter out loud as you press the key; it feels silly and it is the single most effective thing in this plan, because it links the sound, the symbol and the name in one moment. Ten minutes a day, each song until you can play it twice without stopping. On day four add the left hand chords, held for the whole bar, reading the blue letters from the bottom up. By day seven you should have one song with both hands at a slow, steady speed.

What you are learning without noticing: that the notes on the staff go up when the letters go up, that a filled notehead is shorter than a hollow one, and where C, D, E, F and G sit on the treble staff.

Week 2: a wider hand, first black key

Pieces: Ode to Joy, Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday.

Ode to Joy adds nothing new but speed and length. Jingle Bells is in G major: the key signature has one sharp and every F is F♯, a black key. Notice how the letters show it, F♯, and find it on the keyboard: the black key just right of F. Happy Birthday has a wide leap in the third phrase; that leap is the first time your hand has to move out of its position and come back.

This week, start the fade: for the one song you know best from week one, cover the red letters with a strip of paper and play from the staff. You will be slower. When you get stuck, lift the paper, look, cover it again. Do this for two minutes at the end of each practice.

Week 3: both clefs for real

Pieces: Amazing Grace, Minuet in G, Silent Night.

The Minuet is the first piece where the left hand does more than hold a chord. Read the bass clef notes from the bass clef chart: the lines are G B D F A, and the shortcut from treble is that every position is two letters lower. Silent Night and Amazing Grace are in 6/8 and 3/4 respectively: count them out loud, "one two three", because the counting is the piece.

Fade: now cover the letters on everything from weeks one and two. Keep them on the new pieces. Play one old piece from the plain staff every day, before learning anything new. This is the week most people feel the staff "click": the letters are still there in your head when you look at the note.

Week 4: pieces that sound like music

Pieces: Für Elise (opening), Canon in D, Greensleeves, or any carol from the Christmas page if the season is right.

These are the pieces people actually want to play, simplified to a level that week-three hands can manage. Für Elise is in 3/8 with sixteenth notes: it will feel fast; it is not, if you count in three. Canon in D has two sharps. Greensleeves has accidentals written in the bars where they happen, which is the last reading skill in this plan.

Fade: learn one of these with the letters covered from the start, uncovering only to check. If that works, you no longer need the letters for pieces at this level. Keep using them for harder music, which is what they are for: a piece beyond your reading level that you want to play anyway. That is also what the converter on the front page is for.

Three rules that make the plan work

• Slow and correct beats fast and wrong. Set the MIDI file to 60% and play with it. Speed arrives on its own once the notes are secure; mistakes practised fast become permanent.
• Ten minutes every day beats an hour on Sunday. Reading is a recognition skill, like faces. It is built by frequent short exposure.
• Say the letters. Out loud, every time, until week three. Then say them silently. Then stop. The order matters.

After week four

You can read both staves slowly, you know what sharps and flats do, and you have eight or ten short pieces. The next step is a method book or a teacher, and the one thing to carry over from this plan is the fade: whatever you learn with help, learn again without it. The letters were never the point. Playing was.

Written by Taekyung Lee, a self-taught pianist (four years, no lessons) who built Notalo for personal practice. About · Instagram

More: all guides and articles · demo songs with letters.