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Chords form the basis of much music. Knowing chords can help you read music better, by recognizing the note combinations as a whole. Recognizing chord symbols allows you to play from a lead sheet. Having the logic of chords under your fingers gives you a framework on which to base improvisation. Identifying chords can help you understand the structure of a piece of music, and suggest important aural cues to listen for. Starting from the aural end, knowing chords can help you to identify how aural effects are created and what makes them work.

This is a thread to be an online study group for chords. I envision us starting from the very beginning: what is a chord? Then proceeding to naming common chords and learning how to identify them in music. Later we will build up to more complex chords. I'd like this to be a thread where people feel free to ask any question.

I'm far more of a paper theoretician than a good ear player, but along the way I hope we'll talk about ways to hear and play the chords we're learning. I have a good basic grounding in basic music theory, but not in intermediate topics like Neapolitan chords, and not so much in chords beyond seventh chords, as in jazz. Hopefully I'll learn more about these as we go along. But that's a long way from us yet.

So, who's interested? Introduce yourself with a little about what you're playing, whether you're using any method books (which?), and why you're interested in chords.

I'll start . What I'm currently working on is listed in my signature. Basically, early intermediate classical music such as the Anna Magdalena Bach notebook, and easier sonatinas. I've worked through Alfred's Adult All-In-One Level 1, and sporadically apply myself to the Faber and Faber Piano Adventures series. I started this thread as a community service because the ability to analyze harmony has added immensely to my musical appreciation, and I want to share this with others.

I'd love to join. I'm also at the early intermediate level and am currently preparing for my grade 4 RCM exam. I just started piano lessons about 6 months ago. I am not using a method book now just working through the RCM books for this grade. I do have several of the Faber books and had fun with the level 4 Big Time Christmas book this past Christmas. I had about 5 years of organ lessons as a kid but ear training and theory were not a big focus. In learning scales, chords, and cadences for this exam I find the more "links" everything has the more sense it all makes and the more I understand it. I am looking forward to learning more about this!

I'm in!
I'm using Alfred's Adult AIO book 1 until my classes start up again, as they don't run over summer. For the classes we (its a group class) use a workbook that the school makes. So I'm using the Alfred's and will continue to use that for self teaching even when I return to my classes.

What I'm currently working on is whatever is in Alfreds ... I go to the IMSLP site, but I don't know where to go to find things for my level. Everything I click on seems difficult. I want to find some music to work on, and also to improve my music reading ability. (not to be mistaken for sight-reading) I want some material I can take away from the piano and read to become more familiar with identifying notes, chords, patterns. If anyone has any suggestions of beginner music for this purpose I'm all ears.

I'm interested in this study group to learn and improve as much as possible. I look forward to what will be shared on here. Thanks for getting the ball rolling PianoStudent88!

I am definitely in!

I'm solidly in intermediate. I took lessons from age 10 to 18 (completely bluffing through my theory lessons), then went to college. 20 years later, my mother who had always loved my piano playing buys me a digital piano. I pull out old books and play for my husband of 10 years who had no clue that I could play. Lessons on and off over the last eight years with a wonderful, patient teacher, upgraded to a better DP, really got better, actually accompanied singers for a local production of Phantom of the Opera, upgraded to a beautiful Yamaha acoustic upright, which was delivered and then unplayed for 18 months because I was taking care of my mother who died unexpectedly in July. Since August, I've been practicing almost daily (excellent grief therapy, I've found), wondering if I should commit to lessons again. In the meantime, I've worked my way through most of Burgmuller's, Op. 100 (which I started with my teacher at my suggestion) and the first four pieces of Czerny's Studies for the Left hand (which I started at my teacher's suggestion, but I find them much too hard for me -- jumps and arpeggios, which is why I'm still just on #4). I'm now in the space where I really want to fill in all the gaps, like comfortably be able to read ledger line notes (without having to figure them out), use a metronome without freaking out, and understand chords! When I left my lessons, my teacher was just teaching me how to read chords to improvise for like Christmas carols, but then my mother's mental state deteriorated (dementia) and I needed to stop lessons. It would be so cool if I started up my lessons again knowing more about chords.

I'd like very much to participate in this study group, it's a great idea. Currently I'm working on Yesterday and I've been playing on and off for about two years.

Brilliant Idea, I'm in.
A few years back I noticed something with chords, I can often find the chords to a piece of music out of my head say, but every now and again I would not be able to get one.
If I then went out and found the sheet music, in 99 percent of cases it would be a 7th chord I had failed to find.
I often wondered why this was so.
So much so, that now, if I cant find one chord out of a song, I will deliberately try the 7th and it often is.
I allways wondered if this was something parculiar to me or if others experienced this?

Great topic! I've had years of piano & organ lessons (all kinds, classical, jazz, etc) and also majored in music in college and took a lot of music theory, and the most important thing I've learned about chords/theory is that you need to know the Circle of Fifths inside and out:

http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/circle.html
http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/circleprogressions.html

Knowing the CO5 is a great help in learning to play by ear.
BEAD GCF

Hello,
I agree with Elssa that the circle of 5ths is invaluable to
learning songs.
CO5=circle of 5th's
Did you know that you can play 100's of songs with just 3 chords??? They are I IV and V chords, the Major chords.
It also helps to know the chords by roman numerals.
Here is how to form a chord using the C scale.
Play the notes C-E-G with the right hand, using
your thumb(1) middle(3) and pinky(5) fingers.(The right hand finger nuumbers are 1 2 3 4 5
with the thumb being 1. The left hand finger numbers are 1 2 3 4 5 with the thumb being 1.)
Keep your hand locked(using the same fingers) and move up to D-F-A.
Do this up the key board keeping the fingers locked, go to the next bottom white note E, and play E-G-B.
Are you with me so far???
Do this until your thumb reaches the next C.
You have now played 3 Major chords, 3 minor chords, and one
diminished chord.

Here are the chords of the C scale by roman numerals, the capital roman numerals are major chords, and the lower case
are minor chords, with B a diminished chord.

I__ii__iii_IV_V_vi__vii(dim)_I
C_D_E_F_G_A___B_____C The letters are the names of the chords.

Also start with easy play books with maybe just the treble clef
and the chord written above the staff. It is better to start with easy songs you already know than to start with hard ones.
You are trying to learn, not trying to impress anyone.

Hope this helps.

Next tip on the circle of 5ths.

Also stay tuned for chord inversions.

I'm very in-terested. The reason I didn't stop before the hypen is that I don't know how much I can participate at the outset even though I'd like to. I have tendonitus (originally thought it was carpal tunnel) and am trying to give my arm a rest but I'm starting phyical therapy next week and am expecting to improve. Fortunately, I am able to write and I've been doing a lot of theory exercises.

I've been arranging songs by ear for two years and I'm doing the theory to help with that, but also so I can improve my sight reading, learn to embellish more from lead sheets, and generally not depend on memory so much to play songs.

I have a tablet, so even if I can't type, I can use the touch to read the posts and I look forward to doing that.

Whoa, jmj586, that's a lot of info all at once! We're trying to start from scratch, not even knowing what a chord is. We'll get to all those topics, but take them one small step at a time.

So, getting started: what is a chord? A chord is when three or more notes are played at the same time.

Later on we'll expand this definition and allow just two notes, and also look at what happens when the notes are played one after another instead of all at once. But for now let's start with the simple three-or-more, all-at-once definition.

The first exercise is to experience chords by feel, by hearing, and by sight.

By feel: at the piano, experiment with playing several notes at once. Try this all over the keyboard. Try it with notes close together and notes far apart. By hearing: listen to the sounds. What sounds good, or relaxed? What sounds harsh, or tense? Experiment with playing three notes that are separated by a letter. For example, CEG, DFA, EGB, etc. Experiment with adding black notes, if you haven't already. For example C Eb Gb, D F# A, E G# B, Eb G B. Keep listening. Do any of these sound more or less familiar (they may not)? Can you hear the difference when you change one note of a chord up or down a half step? There are no wrong answers here, this is all about exploring the keyboard and its sounds.

By sight: take some of your music and look for chords in it. This will usually be stacks of notes in the bass clef. Let's only look at notes in one hand at a time for now. (Unless you're looking at a hymnal written in four part harmony, where you should consider all four notes together.). What notes are in each of the chords? Do you notice any combinations that appear frequently? If you have a method book, you'll probably find a ton of CEG, CFA, and BFG. What else do you find? Try playing and listening to these chords.

I'm assuming you know the names of the piano keys, and how to decipher written music, even if you can't read it quickly. But all questions are welcome here, so if this doesn't describe you, speak up (or PM me if you prefer). I mentioned "half step" above. A half step means going from one note to its immediate neighbor, whether black or white. So C to C#, D to Db, A to G#, and E to F are all examples of half steps.

Share here about what you find in your keyboard experiments and written music investigations.

Next lesson: snowman chords.

Welcome ZoeCalgary, nikky, Susan K., Pianotehead, Rostosky, Elssa, jmj586, and Starr Keys.

Starr Keys, definitely skip the playing part of this until your arm gets better. Rostosky, that's interesting about the seventh chords. I'm in awe of anyone who can pick any chords out by ear (that is so not my forte!), so I will be interested to hear what other people's experience is.

It looks like this thread may operate at two levels at once, an introductory level that proceeds step by step and a more advanced level that assumes more knowledge. Or maybe it would be better to have a second thread for more advanced topics. What do you folks think?

I'm planning to lay out a series of mini-lessons about chords, trying to proceed slowly. If something is confusing, please ask! Or if you have questions of your own about chords, ask away and we can all try to answer them.

Because there's a wide variety of chord knowledge on this thread, there may be more advanced discussions that you want to ignore for now. But my plan is for the mini-lessons to start from the beginning and build gradually so definitely hold my feet to the fire and ask questions if I go too fast or am unclear.

I was going to offer to help, then deleted my post after reading PS88's last reply. Don't want to hi-jack his/her plan for slow development.

Ps88, do you think perhaps you could have one thread where you post the mini lessons and ask that no-one comments in the thread, so that it remains easy to read and learn from, especially for newcomers to the forum at a later date, and keep this one as a question and answer discussion type thread ?

I've found it interesting how melodies of songs are voiced with chords. In the material I've studied it is stated that the melody is usually the top note of the chord.

More often than not though, the melody is a mixture of chords and single notes in between. Does the human ear always pick out the top note, that is, hears it better than the other notes being played at the same time?

One exercise to help your ear training chord listening abilities is to listen to songs on the radio and try to figure out the relative chord being played (relative to the key of the song). I've been doing this for a about 6 months, starting with country music because it is usually fairly simple usually with only the I, IV, and V chords -- the most basic progressions, occasionally with a vi chord and less frequently ii or iii (minor chords are lower-case). Then I've worked my way up to more complex music, and the more I do it, the easier it becomes.

I have a basic knowledge of chords and theory but I need to improve on it and make it more concrete. I would like to play by ear a bit but I'm playing from sheets right now. I have a problem there because I have some vision issues that are making it difficult and uncomfortable to read music fluently. I think chord symbols would be easier on the eyes and that if I could go through a piece of music and notate chord symbols in some areas and use the notes as more of a guide than actually "reading" them when I look at the music maybe I could learn things faster.

I'm mostly self-taught over the last four years with some instruction in basic theory years ago in school. The last song I "finished" was "Two of Us" by The Beatles and I've been working on Gymnopedie#1 by Satie. I have no problem with following a thread that starts at the very beginning because I'm not so far along that the review wouldn't be helpful.

Hi PianoStudent88! Thanks for starting this group!

Brief intro here: zero music background until I took a group lesson in June 2010, then practiced on and off (more off than on) after that. Got serious in June 2011 and have been taking lessons, although my teacher then didn't think scales or chords are important. I just started with a new teacher. I guess I am somewhere between Late Elementary and Early Intermediate. Currently working on Bach's Minute in G.

I finished the first book of Alfred's Basic Adult Piano and both books in the Farber's Adult Piano Adventure, in which I learned the keys of C, G, F, D (and their relative minors), as well as their primary chords.

My biggest question are:

1) How do we tell if a chord is major or minor without hearing it? My ears can usu. tell a major from a minor, but when looking at the keyboards, do I have to count how many half steps, etc., in order to determine whether my fingers should hit the white key or the black key? When you play, we don't have the time to do the counting...

2) How do we remember individual chords in a key? By that I mean, how can we tell that F is the perfect 4th in C major scale, WITHOUT counting or looking at the keyboard, that the II chord in C is Dm, not D?

3) I remember chords in their 3-finger position, but when they are broken and scattered across the two staffs (and/or with inversions), I find it hard to connect them (or pick them out quickly).

Thanks again -- looking forward to the mini-lessons!

You do this by playing all chords and their inversions *a lot*. Do this over and over and over, and eventually the physical knowledge will become ingrained in your procedural memory and will become natural to you without conscious effort -- it will be as if your fingers just "know" what they're playing.



See my answer above. It all comes down to repetition and effort.

Best of luck with your music and your studies.

Pete

There are a few tricks to help you remember the major and minor chords. There are 24 of them, one major and minor respectively, for each of the twelve notes in an octave.

Those chords will always have the same color of the end notes (the first and the fifth chord notes), with the exception of the B and B flat chords. So 20 of those 24 chords have this pattern.

The quickest way to go from a major chord to minor is by lowering the middle note (the third) by one note, or half step.

I find it also helpful, when constructing chords beginning on a flat or a sharp, that if I know the chord beginning with the natural note, I can simply lower or raise every note of the chord.

For example, I know a G chord is G-B-D or any inversion thereof. Then a Gb chord would be Gb-Bb-Db, all keys black.

But first and foremost this comes with practice, as petes1 points out.