In these piano lessons, you can find quick and easy solutions to the problems that plague novice pianists.
I remind you that the knowledge of the chords on the piano is of fundamental importance both for the pop pianist and for the jazz pianist, so it is necessary to study a lot so that, after reading a specific theme, you can play the notes of the chord written on the score.
The most experienced pianists do this without too much trouble; budding pianists need more practice to come up with piano chords because they have to memorize them over time.
In reality, even the most experienced pianists may have doubts about this or that chord, as pop scores are not always so precise: they sometimes leave the taste of doubt, especially for chords of four or more sounds and for suspended triads.
How to learn chords on the piano:
You can play children’s songs, or sad songs on the piano, what matters is to remedy any doubts.
Once connected you can know the notes that form a certain chord thanks to the virtual piano.
So, let’s take some examples: take the piano sheet music of Lean On: you can find it in the sheet music section for piano.
At bar 1 we find the Mi chord. Well, in case you don’t know the notes that make up this chord, you should link to the 8notes.com page.
Let’s make a premise: if you are not aware of it, the notes in the Anglo-Saxon notation have a different name than those of the Latin countries.
Ok, in our example you must first click on “Eb” (which stands for E flat) to know the main triad formed by the notes Eb flat, G, and B flat, as demonstrated by the virtual piano:
As you can see, the white keys are marked with blue dots, while the black keys are marked with yellow dots.
The nice thing is that if you press the play button under the virtual piano you can hear the chord you just got! The virtual piano will first play all the notes simultaneously and then one note at a time.
In any case, you still need to know which notes are added to the E flat chord, that is, you need to understand what that “maj7” placed next to the triad abbreviation means.
For this, you will have to click on “Show All Eb Chords”. Here you will find a lot of variations, added chords, suspended, etc.
In our example you will have to click on “Eb maj7”: you will discover that it is nothing but the E flat major chord with the addition of the major seventh, then with the addition of D:
At bar 22 we find the Sol9b chord:
In the Piano Chord Chart section, click on “G” (which stands for G): we discover that the major chord is formed by the notes G, B, and D.
We need to know what that “9b” means. Then click on “Show All G Chords”.
In this case, we will not find “G9b”, but “G 7b9” which is the most correct way to indicate the seventh chord with the addition of the minor ninth.
Sol9b is the cheaper way to write this chord; in reality, the correct way is the one indicated by the site program, that is “Sol7 / 9b” which is formed by the notes Sol, Si, Re, Fa, Lab.
As already mentioned, the scores of pop music often leave room for doubt due to the approximation with which the chords are sometimes indicated.
In difficult cases, it is up to you and your musical ear to establish which and how many notes a certain chord is made of, keeping in mind the notes of the melody on which the chords of the song we are studying “turn”. Might be you are interested in piano reviews. Read it here before making any purchase.
In fact, playing the piano starting from the chords can be a winning way to develop your musical ear!
Let’s recap, to get the notes of the chords on the piano you have to:
- Click on the note that gives the name to the chord, that is the root of the chord (example, C #)
- Go to “Show All Chords” to find the type of chord you want to know the notes of (example, C # m6)
Well, you can find it on YouTube.
If you like, you can share and “like”; in this way you can help your pianist friends to solve this problem using the explained technique.
If you have any doubts or questions, you just have to ask by writing in the comments: I will be happy to answer you as always!
Remember that in music, as in the laws of the world.