How To: Play "Clair de lune" on piano — Clefs, flats, and keys

Start out playing the piano by learning one of the most famous pieces of music in the world. That song would be "Clair de lune" by Claude Debussy. And this video starts you out with playing and learning the clefs, flats, key signatures, and black keys that will help you begin playing this work of art.

Before watching this video, you're going to have to know the navigation of the piano and the basics of the note names and how G clefs work.

Learn about the special rules governing the notes in this piece, and some possible reasons why Claude Debussy decided to use black keys instead of white ones, which would've been easier to play.

"Clair de lune from scratch" is a video lesson series designed to help folks who have never played the piano before get started right away learning how to read real music and play this masterpiece by Claude Debussy. The secret that all teachers use is to teach in small portions. You'll get an overview of the whole piece in this video, along with a preview of the different camera angles, screenshots of the digital sheet music score, and a computer representation of the damper pedal to help you learn more dynamically.

You can download the MusicReader version of "Clair de lune" itself, right here.

Watch all of the videos in the "Clair de lune from Scratch" series on WonderHowTo.