How to Play Piano (Kid’s Color Coded Piano Hand Placement)

When teaching kids how to play piano, color coded finger placement on the piano keyboard helps keep young students, and students with learning disabilities, from becoming confused.

• The color coded keyboard diagram above shows the piano hand placement for middle C position.
• For most kids this will be enough.
• However, some children will still become confused and will need an application of colored masking tape to color code their fingers.

To learn how to color code fingers:

• Color Coding the Fingers

Some kids will need more than just the keyboard diagram but won’t need color coded fingers.

• Instead of having a diagram that shows the color coding for the keys, you can create (what you might think of as) colored piano fingering charts (see the two hand icon illustrations below).
• Color coding is an alternative to using piano music finger numbers.
• It works best when the child’s fingers are only in one hand position.

Trace the kid’s hands and color in the fingers using colored pencils.

• Or you can have the student do the coloring.
• The colored hand icons give a guide to the kid’s finger placement on the piano keyboard without actually showing the keyboard itself.
• Of course, it works best when you use both piano fingering “charts” (the keyboard and the colored hand icons) in conjunction with the color coded keyboard guide (see below).

For more on the keyboard guide:

• Color Coding Musical Instruments

That way the child can use all three visual aids when learning how to play the piano.

• This’ll help with using the correct piano music finger “numbers” without having to use any actual finger numbers.
• This works great for helping both pre-literate and learning disabled kids learn correct piano hand placement.
• In the next section, we’ll cover how to play piano songs.