Play Piano by Chords

Simple Piano Chord Tutorial

Learning to play piano by chords can be fast and exciting!

Piano chords sound rich and full, and can help you sound like an advanced pianist even as a beginner.

It's so satisfying to sit at the piano and play!

Learning to play piano by chords can also be one of the fastest ways to learn piano.

Of course, learning to play takes time and practice no matter which method you use. But learning chords can give you immediate access not only to improvisation, but to just about any popular music you choose.

How's that? Well, if you pick up a popular (not classical) music book, you'll see written music. But on top of the lines, you'll see a series of capital letters, some with numbers, some with other lower-case letters.

These are chords. So even before you learn to read music, you can learn to play and sing some of your favorite music!

Here are my best tips and resources for learning chord method piano.

First off, just what is a chord?

A chord is a group of notes played at the same time. From 2 notes to as many as your fingers can play!

The most common chords are called triads, because they have 3 notes. These are the ones you'll learn first. Simple Piano Chords

To get you started, here's how to play three major chords. (I'm assuming you know your way around a piano keyboard. If not, go check out piano basics and then come on back here.)

To play a C chord on piano, place your right hand thumb, finger one (RH 1) on middle C. Put each of your remaining fingers on the next white key. Now press down fingers 1, 3 and 5 together. (This would be your thumb, middle, and pinky fingers.)

Ta-da! You've just played a C chord!

Now count up your letter names until you find F. An F will be directly to the left of a group of 3 black keys. Repeat the process above by putting your RH 1 (thumb) on F, the rest of your fingers on the next white keys. Play 1, 3 and 5 - you've got an F chord!

Go up one more key to G and repeat again. G chord!

You can practice these three major chords with both hands, all over the keyboard. Get your hands used to that shape.

There's a whole world of piano chords out there for you to learn.

There are different kinds of chords, each with a particular sound. You're already familiar with the common chord sounds used in western music - you hear them all the time on the radio! You just don't know the names of them yet. Chords are like the colors an artist uses to create a painting.

So, have some fun and start experimenting with different chord sounds. Download a good piano chord chart!

I really like the chord charts from ChordMaps.com. This site is actually a great music theory course for songwriters, but they have great chord charts to download. The chord charts are by note. So there is an entire chord chart for C, for Db, for D... you get the picture.

Click here to go to the chord charts page, or scroll down the homepage until you see a link that says "Chord Charts and Maps."

They're free. They're designed to fit and print on regular pages. They include every chord known to mankind. And they are graphical: each chord is shown in red on a little keyboard, so you know exactly which keys to use. Simple!

Next, get some free piano chord lessons.

The most comprehensive free piano chord lessons I know of are from PlayPiano.com, taught by Duane Shinn.

Duane Shinn is a master teacher with over 300 learn-piano courses for sale online. What's great is that he doesn't give you "fluff" in his free newsletter - he gives you a real, useful chord piano course. You'll get a taste of his teaching style and can decide whether to invest in more lessons.

And, if you do decide to purchase one of Duane's courses, I'd love to hear about your experiences. You can share your own experiences, comment, and create your own page here.

Practice, practice, practice...

Now that you've started learning to play piano by chords, just keep playing.

Want some help staying motivated to practice? Check out the links below.

Chock full of good ideas to keep you happily practicing away!

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