How do ‘short’ musical keyboards with less than 88 keys work with the reduced range?

Question

A friend of mine has a keyboard with less than the full 88 keys found on a standard piano. How does this limit the instrument in terms of what music can be played?

In: 3

Answer 1

Their are 13 notes in an Octave – 8 white keys, the normal notes, and the 5 sharps/flats – the black ones. That pattern simply repeats itself with each octave added to the players left of middle C an octave lower from the last, each octave right an octave higher.

So what keyboards with less than 88 keys do is add an up button and a down button. 0 is middle C centre octave, -1 is with an ocatve lower than middle c at centre. +1 is the same in reverse, same with +/- 2 but thats two ovtaves up or down at centre.