Transposition on the fly

How are you with transposition? I wasn't good before I started with the chord and scale cards. Now I'm a lot better. I can play a lot of things in different keys, but, I couldn't take a piece of music and transpose it on the fly. . . until now.

3 years ago, I created piano key finder cards. One of the cards is a key name card.

Align the black keys with the black strips on the cards, and they keys practically name themselves.

Key names moved up, so when I play in "C" I'm actually playing in E

This has been one of the greatest things ever. When I send one home with my students, I am assured that they will always be able to find the correct key, even with the enharmonics (c-flat, and e-sharp, for example)

I have all of my students working around the circle of 5ths from the first lesson and this is the card that makes it effortless.

However, last Wednesday (28 Jan, 2026- today is 2 Feb 2026) I realized that the card isn't for beginners. It's for anyone who wants or needs to transpose written music when they are playing the piano.

Transposition in action.

The video is an imperfect example of transposition on the fly. I wanted to get the idea out, and it was the book that was handy.

Basically, by shifting the key name card up or down, one is effectively renaming the keys. If you rename the keys, you can read in whatever the original key of the piece you are looking at, but shifting up or down, with the names of the keys.

In the beginning some students would fail to see the white and black pattern of the key name card, so they would be "right-wronging" it. Namely playing everything correctly, but in the wrong key. Now I think of that as early transposition, which is way cooler!

You can get the key name card here:

Piano Key Name Cards

$9.99

Buy Now

Happy Playing!

Sarah