My daughter has this Little Tikes Tap-a-Tune Piano and I’m trying to figure out the notes the keys correspond to.
I’m not very musically inclined. I know which notes are which on a normal piano (C,D,E etc), but I can’t figure out which notes this toy matches up to. I don’t have the ear to match up the notes between a regular piano and this toy piano. A lot of the notes sound the same, but a little different.
So any of you musical Dopers have this toy and can figure it out for me?
Well, if it plays the right four notes, you teach her how to play “Sweet Dreams are Made of This,” but aside from that, you’ll probably just want to use it to teach her that different pitches exist, that you get the same different pitch from the various keys (i.e., lowest note every time you hit the leftmost key), basics of rhythm, and cool sounds if you hit more than one at a time. I can’t tell from looking at it what the pitches would be.
My little sister used to have one of those. IIRC, it’s the notes of a major chord (the three top notes are a major third, a fifth, and an octave above the bottom note), making it incapable of producing anything interesting (which parents are probably thankful for).
That’s awesome! But, umm… what does it mean? Can you translate that into something for a novice. Like the green key is C, the red key is D, etc.
Well, I don’t know what notes they are without hearing it again, but if the green key is C, the other three are E, G, and C respectively.
If that’s the case, then it’d be C, E, G, C from left to right. And you should be able to play bugle calls on it (Taps, Reveille, etc.)
Coincidentially, the notes that the Simon game makes are very close to this: G, C, E, and G. Its designer, Ralph Baer, discovered that the bugle can play these four notes in any sequence and still sound pleasing to the ear.
Hence why they’re good notes for something a little kid is going to be banging on. (As much as I want kids to be introduced to dissonance at an early age, it might make parents go crazy.)
As a musician, I don’t find that discovery all that exciting (and I find myself wishing for an Atonal Simon, or at least a Minor Simon), but whatever. 
Thanks for all the help. It does appear that the notes are C, E, G, C like you thought. This corresponds to:
Green = C
Blue = E
Red = G
Orange = C
What messed me up when I was trying to figure it out on my own is that I though the notes would have been sequential (C,D,E). So I might have gotten one right, but then the one next to it would sound off.
Thanks again for the help. My daughter had come up with a little tune on the toy that she wanted to play on a real piano. Now she can!