What is a chord?
A chord is a group of notes that can be played together and function
as the harmony in music. There are lots of different chords that can
be organized in different groups and categories. One thing that differ
among chords is how many notes that are included. There are triads
(three notes), four-note (sometimes called tetrachords) and five-
note chords. In addition, chords with six or seven notes also exist.
See in-depth summary of chord types.
Building chords
A good way to learn chords on the piano is to be familiar with how
they are constructed. The Cmaj7 chord adds one note to C, the
seventh in the C major scale. The Cm7 adds one note to Cm, the
seventh in the C minor scale. Looking at the extended chord (e.g. C7,
C9, C11), they are adding notes using intervals from the root of the
chords with seventh, ninth and eleventh degrees. See a list of chord
built by steps.
... And how to play piano chords?
When you know which notes that belong to a chord, you can play it
in several ways. A chord can be played by pressing down all the
relevant keys simultaneously or each at a time. As you make
progress, you will find more ways of altering the outcome. It is also
important to use the right fingers and this is called fingerings.
Hands
So which hand do you play chords on piano with? The answer is that
it depends.
For musical accompaniment (i.e. you play in a band or with a singer)
you can choose to play only with one hand or with both, depending
on how advanced things you are playing – when playing chords
including many notes, using two hands can be advantageous (see
Two-hands chords). Other piano techniques include playing chords
in two parts (e.g. the root note first and when the rest of the notes or
the root followed by the whole chord on a higher octave, so-called
stride chords).
If you play solo, you are mostly playing the chords with your left
hand and the melody with your right. This is far more natural than
the opposite because the harmony and melody sound better
combined this way.
Fingerings
The fingers to use when playing piano chords varies. Here are some
advice to lead you to right practice:
In general, avoid using the thumb for the black keys.
But for the most time (i.e. when the first note is not a black key) you
should involve the thumb.
Always strive for the most natural position for the hand.
The most common fingerings for triads using left-hand are, in order:
little finger (5), middle finger (3) and thumb (1).
The most common fingerings for triads using right-hand are, in
order: thumb (1), middle finger (3) and little finger (5).
The numbers are used to simplify and represent the five fingers from
thumb (1) to little finger (5), regardless if the left or right hand is
concerned. On this site you can find fingerings for the chords, these
are suggestions that strives to follow the standard way, but must not
be optimal in all situations or for all hands.
Exercises could be done for developing independence among the
fingers. Normally, the ring fingers are the weakest and need the
most strength training. See fingerings illustrated with pictures.
Combining them
After you learned some chords, the next step is to combine them into
progressions.
How to read the diagrams?
On the image below you can see one example of how a piano chord is
presented on this site including a diagram:
A red color means that the key is part of the chord that is in focus. To
play the actual chord on a piano, press down all keys marked in red
(if needed, see a diagram compared to a realistic picture). Since the
pattern of keys repeat itself on the keyboard, you can place your
hand in many positions. You will notice, however, that there is more
bass on the left part of the keyboard and more treble as you go to the
right. Therefore, you should strive for placing your hand somewhere
in the middle.
