Get Directions
(858) 586-7000
Posted by Greene Music on April 15, 2022
If you’re new to reading music, one of the first things that may hinder your path to success are those small letters that appear above the staff on sheet music. Wondering what those are? These details on your sheet music are piano chords. While this is a foreign concept to many beginning pianists, for those playing pop, rock, jazz, and folk tunes, learning piano chords is essential to playing and performing music.
Knowing how to understand piano chords is a foundational lesson when learning piano, and the different piano chords can do a lot to affect the sound you emit when playing. It's what brings the music together and creates a structure for the songs you play, and nothing to skim over in the learning process.
Ultimately, the best path to understanding piano chords is by playing. To help, our team of piano experts at Greene Music is breaking down everything you need to know about piano chords to help you become a better pianist.
But what are piano chords?
A chord is formed when more than one note is played at once. To do this on a piano, you will push down more than one key at the same time. Typically, basic piano chords consist of just two or three notes, while more advanced ones add additional notes.
One of the most common types of piano and keyboard chords is a triad. This is a three-note chord that contains a root note, plus two other notes. For your piano chord learning, the way to create a triad is to put your thumb and fingers on adjacent white keys, pressing with your thumb, middle, and pinky at once. Mastering this technique will assist you in playing different piano chords with ease.
We now know the basics of a chord, but do you understand what notes are as they pertain to a chord? Piano notes go along with the pattern of black and white keys on your piano, with a group of two black keys followed by a group of three black keys. This pattern continues across the piano and is how we identify the notes. Then, white keys are assigned a letter from A through G, with each of their corresponding black keys being referred to as sharp or flat.
Learning chords on the piano doesn’t have to be a complicated process, it’s just one that takes a bit of practice.
One way to start is by experimenting with your piano. Start by pressing multiple keys down at the same time. Listen to the sound it creates when played together. That’s your chord.
Sometimes, when you do this practice, your piano will create a beautiful sound that you can’t get enough of. However, sometimes this will be dissonant. This signals different harmonies you’re creating.
Piano chord learning starts with understanding intervals. The idea of “intervals” refers to the distance in pitch between two notes. These intervals determine how notes sound when played together and are measured in half-steps and whole-steps.
With these steps in mind, each one can be used to create particular sequences to create a scale. Every major scale follows a sequence of whole and half steps. Here’s an example
By understanding the notes in a sequence, you will start to notice the different and unique notes within a scale in order to play chords.
Now, it’s time to build a chord on the piano.
To build a chord, we start with a root note. While a chord may begin to incorporate many notes, we are beginning by focusing on triads with three notes to better understand piano chord structure.
As mentioned earlier, triads have one root note, a third, and a fifth. These third and fifth notes are chosen based on the number of steps between each interval in a scale. By using these intervals from any note, you will play a major triad. To play other chords on the piano, all you have to do is adjust the intervals between the notes, making minor, augmented, and diminished chords.
To help, let’s go over an example you can practice on your own piano. For a C major chord, the third is E, which is two whole steps above the C note. Then, the fifth is G, since it is three and a half steps above the C on a major scale. Make sense?
Now that you can answer the question of “what is a chord in piano?” it’s time to play.
To play a chord, you must use multiple fingers at the same time to press down the piano keys in unison. In some cases, a piece of music may ask you to play a chord with both hands, but typically a chord is created with just one.
To play piano major and minor chords in their root position, use your thumb, middle finger, and pinky. So, for example, a C major chord would be played like so:
To truly understand musical chords for piano, you need to not just play them, but read them on sheet music, too.
Typically, chords are written as notes stacked on top of one another on a staff. When you read a stacked note, you can see that you must play them all at once.
While this is most commonly how chords are written, there are a few other ways they can appear on sheet music. You may also see chord notes in a lead sheet or fake sheet. In this case, you won’t find a complete arrangement of the music, but instead, the main elements that are essential to performing your rendition. In this case, you will have a melody written in normal musical notation with the associated chords written above the staff.
A lot goes into understanding piano chords, and another element you must know is the chord progression.
Chord progression refers to the sequence of chords that make up a piece of music. In a basic form, a chord progression can be the shift between two chords with the rhythm in the music.
Typically, in songs, you will find different chord progressions for different parts of the song. For instance, when a singer sings a pop song, one chord progression will play in the background, but when it shifts to the chorus, the chord progression will switch, too.
Some songs are based on just one, simple chord progression, but many songs today rely on many. Thankfully, songs around the world rely on similar chord progressions that listeners recognize, allowing pianists to better master various musical chords for piano.
When learning chords on the piano, it’s important to understand the different chords that make up your sheet music. Different piano chords elicit different sounds - from major chords to diminished chords and augmented ones.
To help you better understand musical chords for piano, let’s break down the details of the common chord types.
The most common three-note chord, or triad, is a major chord. This chord always sounds “complete,” and is named after the root note played. So, for instance, an E major chord would have a root note of E. It’s that simple.
Major chords are some of the easiest chords to learn in your early days as a pianist. This is due to the fact that the number of half steps remains the same in-between notes, making the sound the same no matter what.
To play a major chord, choose a root note to start with. Then, from that root note, count up two whole steps. This is your third note. Then, from that third note, count one and a half steps more to find the fifth note. When playing these three notes together, you will create a major triad and a happy, lively sound. This kind of major chord is used in nearly every pop and rock song, so it’s certainly one to know.
To understand a minor chord, you can think of a standard major chord, but upside down. This means your root note stays the same, but the third note will change. In this minor chord, the minor interval goes on the bottom while the major interval goes on the top. In both cases, the fifth stays in the same place.
Not understanding? Let’s break it down for your minor piano chord learning.
To play the C minor chord, the root will remain the C note. However, you will go up three half steps to make the minor third, putting you at E flat. Then, four more half steps will bring you to the G. To play the D minor chord, you would use notes D, F, and A. On the other hand, for an E minor chord, it would be E, G, and B.
Next are diminished chords. A diminished triad relies on a minor third, plus a lowered fifth. This lowered fifth is a “diminished fifth” and is three whole steps above the root note. To find the notes to create a diminished chord, you will count a step and a half from the root note to locate the third, and then a step and a half from there to get to the fifth.
A diminished chord is typically less common in sheet music than that of piano major and minor chords. However, a diminished chord is often found in pop and rock music. Typically, they create a tense, almost spooky sound. Most commonly, we find diminished chords used in transition between two other chords.
When thinking about augmented piano chords, this refers to the use of a major third and a raised fifth or “augmented fifth.” To create an augmented fifth, the interval is four whole steps from the root note. This chord creates a very unique, distinct, and unusual sound.
Similar to diminished chords, augmented chords are most often used as transitions in songs. This helps move from one stable sound to the next in pop and rock music.
We’ve focused a great deal on C chords, so let’s do the same for an augmented chord. To play a C augmented, you will play C, E, and G#. This tune may sound unusual, but that’s the purpose of these augmented chords.
The last of the different piano chords is the seventh chord. This chord adds another note, meaning you play four notes instead of just the typical three. With seventh chords, you can give music a richer tone and a bit more color for a fuller sound.
Continuing with C chords, a C7 chord will ask you to play notes C, E, G, and B-flat all at once. This can be written in different ways to signal different needs. For instance, if sheet music calls for a C maj 7, then you will instead play C, E, G, and B, no longer relying on a B-flat note.
The word “arpeggio” comes from the Italian word “arpeggiate,” which means to “play on a harp.” But how does this relate to learning piano chords? An arpeggio is actually a broken chord. For broken piano chords, all the notes are played individually instead of at the same time.
As an example, when playing a C major chord, you would play the C, E, and G as usual. However, instead of pressing that all at the same time, you will play the C, then the E, followed by the G. Most commonly, arpeggios are played in ascending or descending order, but you can mix it up to, playing E, then C, followed by G.
In music, arpeggios are played in a pattern that accompanies the rhythm of the piece. Typically, an arpeggio is played with the left hand and can span multiple octaves when using both hands. An arpeggio can also make up the melody of the music.
Piano chords make up all our favorite sheet music and current songs today, and understanding piano chords and how to play them can help expand a pianist's practice to discover new and intricate pieces they’ve never tried before.
From answering what is a chord in piano, to the different piano chords, our experts at Greene Music know it all. Not only can we share more about how to understand chords and play the piano, but we offer an array of pianos to take your practice to the next level. For more help learning to play, or to discover different piano options for your exploration, contact us today, and our team will help guide you through your piano chord learning.