I’m a complete novice to music and am learning piano, I just bought some stickers with the notes and letters for my keys but the black keys have 2 notes and letters, do they make a different sound when you hit them higher up vs lower on the key?
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They actually have more than that. For example the note between C and D can be denoted D♭ (D flat), C♯ (C sharp) or B𝄪 (B double sharp). There is also a double flat symbol ♭♭. The white keys also have multiple names – for example C is also B♯ and D♭♭.
This is all mostly just for notational convenience. Sharp and flat signs usually last for a whole bar, or if they’re in the key signature then they last until there is a key change. To cancel them out you use a ♮ (natural) sign. But if you need to use both C and C♯ repeatedly within a bar this can get painful, so it might be more convenient to write the C♯ as D♭, or (more rarely) the C as B♯.
Also I think historically C♯ and D♭ were used to refer to slightly different frequenices. Some harpsichords even had two black keys for every one on a modern piano, tuned to those two different notes. Modern Western music overwhelmingly uses the “equal temperament” system in which there are just 12 distinct notes in each octave, so C♯ and D♭ are just two names for the same thing. But those older traditions influenced the development of musical notation somewhat.
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