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I asked my piano teacher how many chords I would have to learn.He replied that you don,t learn chords you read them.
Thanks for any comments suggestions.
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Solidus, I am not sure where your teacher was coming from when she/he said you "read" chords. But that sounds way off to me.
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I'm not sure anyone has ever calculated just how many chords can be formed on the piano but I'm sure it is at least in the hundreds, and that's only if you count them in there root form. It becomes thousands once you start counting inversions and open voicings. The thing is; once you get the notes to any chord memorized and can place them anywhere on the piano you don't really have to think about it that much. I'm still in the thinking stage but am getting much better at veriatle voicings without having to give it major thought, much thanks to a teacher who seems to know how to make one do that! If your teacher means that you "read" them I would assume you are studying classical music and he is only teaching reading. If you ever intend to play jazz or even some contemporary music you will want to "learn" your chords.
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OK, just for fun I put this together; considering a chord as all the notes in a two octace scale (no triads), key of C; CEGBDFAC. Major Minor Dominate sus +5 b5 +9 b9 +11 b5+9 +5b9 what am I missing here? Counting only what I've included here equals 143 chords over a half tone scale of one octave. I'm not saying that's it or I'm right or I'm not missing any chords. I'm just starting to count.
Mike
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By you read them. The basic Major chord "block" as it looks in standard notation is three notes stacked on top of each other. A Major chord has a specific look (block), a minor chord has another look (block). That is what your teacher was telling you. Recognize the block -- then ---- look at the bass note that's the chord's name. Now place the block's root note on your keyboard and you've played the chord.
How many will you need, if you are using the C scale for most everything you do ---- then: C, Dm, Em, F, G or G7, Am, Bdim should get you started. You can do quite a lot with just C, F & G or G7.
How many are there, I've never bothered to count them. I just use what is necessary for the song, and that is usually three to six. It's not all that complicated.
Good luck.
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Hi,
It does seem like an odd way to put it, but perhaps the teacher meant that it's better to be able to read (or construct) chords rather than simply trying to learn or memorise a bunch of hand shapes?
That's the way I see it anyway. I know what a basic C Major triad shape looks and feels like as far as my hand goes. But I also know that I can use inversions of the chord, spread it across different parts of the keyboard in both hands, drop and/or add notes and so on.
The job of trying to 'learn' every possible permutation of note combinations would be a massively unachievable and completely pointless task. So perhaps the teacher was trying to say "You don't learn a finite number of hand shapes, you learn how to build whatever you need to suit the situation."
Cheers,
Chris
Who needs feet of clay? I can get into enough trouble with feet made of regular foot stuff...
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I'm learning chords as I need 'em. I'm working on sight-reading, but truth be told, I have a heck of a long way to go. I do much better playing by ear...so when I get to a song with a chord I don't know, I find it, then practice it and practice transitioning to it and from it with other chords.
Again, I play blues, which allows a lot of leeway in how I play, when, where and how to improvise. Sometimes I only play the 1-5 diad (leaving out the "3" in a major chord,) especially if it's a fast progression like, say, 5,4,2,1 then 1,4,5 again in a turnaround.
This sure wouldn't work in a classical piece, but the reason I love the blues is because of its wide-open nature. That's a blessing and a curse, especially when it comes to learning some licks that real great artists have used. But I'm havin a great time doin it.
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12 major 12 minor
But just a few at a a time.
All the other types of chords can wait 'till later...
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I've just started biting off some more serious chord work myself.
I'm playing blues, so you might think I7, IV7, V7 (dominant 7ths of course) would get you pretty far --and it does-- but I am finding that there are blues cliches that are quite a bit more complex.
Currently, I'm working on an AABA groove that is full of four and five note 9ths, 9+, 9/b7, b7 in both hands. The effect is that of a slow, super-syncopated "doo-wop" riff.
In order to understand it, I'm dissecting the chords in each measure to see which chord tones are being used and where they fall. It's slow going, but a real education.
Without music life would be a mistake -- Friedrich Nietzsche
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Originally posted by pastafarian: In order to understand it, I'm dissecting the chords in each measure to see which chord tones are being used and where they fall. It's slow going, but a real education. I know what you mean. If it wasn’t for all these different keys, scales, modes, chords, ect… I'd have a pretty good handle on all this theory stuff!! [EDITED for spelling errors]
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have a pretty good handle on all this theory stuff!! [Big Grin] You said it, Triryche, seems the more I learn, the less I know :rolleyes: :p .
Without music life would be a mistake -- Friedrich Nietzsche
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According to my Encyclopedia of Keyboard Color Picture Chords..its over a thousand..a great book BTW..its best to know your Major Minor 7ths..AND the inversions.. this book is 240 color pages..
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If you include all inversions and transpositions (except octave displacements) and exclude all chords with more than 9 notes there are about 105 million possible chords.
Adding 10-12 note chords puts the number over a billion
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Originally posted by BWV 1080: If you include all inversions and transpositions (except octave displacements) and exclude all chords with more than 9 notes there are about 105 million possible chords.
Adding 10-12 note chords puts the number over a billion I'b be interested in seeing the math. The thing is, you don't have to memorize all these millions of chords. You just need to know how to voice them and what notes fit any particular chord. A flatted fifth is alway the same note in any particular chord no matter where is't played on the keyboard. A seventh is always a seventh; if in the key of C it's either a major (B), or minor or dominate (Bb) whether played on the bottom, in the middle, or on top of your voicing. I would not let the amount of available chord voicings intimidate you. With enough practice you will see the chord notes and can voice them at your whim (with a few rules applied of course). But I do believe that knowing the notes of the many variations of any chord will be ultimatly benificial to know immediatly without thought. So learn your chords - don't just read them.
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How many chord types ignoring pitch changes and voicings ?
Seeing the chromatic scale is a cyclic group of order 12 and a chord type is therefore just a partition of 12, a quick application of the Polya Burnside theorem (or by just counting) tells us that including a silence there are 352 chord types (or scales, regarding a scale as a chord) playable on the piano. Further, a second application of the theorem gives an obvious way of looking at the chords within each partition. For example the partition 4,3,3,2 has three permutations corresponding to the seventh chord (4,3,3,2), the sixth chord (4,3,2,3) and the minor sixth chord (4,2,3,3)
The whole thing has a pleasing unity to it which I used to imagine would appeal to serialists. I couldn't find it in any books so I published it myself many years ago in the New Zealand Mathematics Magazine (Vol 16, No 2) because no musical publication I could find would accept it.
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" - Aleister Crowley
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Originally posted by mdsdurango: Originally posted by BWV 1080: [b] If you include all inversions and transpositions (except octave displacements) and exclude all chords with more than 9 notes there are about 105 million possible chords.
Adding 10-12 note chords puts the number over a billion I'b be interested in seeing the math.
The thing is, you don't have to memorize all these millions of chords. You just need to know how to voice them and what notes fit any particular chord. A flatted fifth is alway the same note in any particular chord no matter where is't played on the keyboard. A seventh is always a seventh; if in the key of C it's either a major (B), or minor or dominate (Bb) whether played on the bottom, in the middle, or on top of your voicing. I would not let the amount of available chord voicings intimidate you. With enough practice you will see the chord notes and can voice them at your whim (with a few rules applied of course). But I do believe that knowing the notes of the many variations of any chord will be ultimatly benificial to know immediatly without thought. So learn your chords - don't just read them. [/b]the number of chords with r notes out of n = 12 tones
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Originally posted by Ted2: How many chord types ignoring pitch changes and voicings ?
Nice one Ted2. :b: Cheers, Chris
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OK - now it's over my head. This is the adult BEGINNERS forum. Can we start with BEGINNERS math?
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Here is a scan of the article, which has more explanation. Chord types on the piano
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" - Aleister Crowley
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