Basics of a Piano Chord

What is a chord exactly?
A chord is a set of two or more notes played at the same time. However, most chords (especially the ones we will deal with) are made up of three notes playing at the same time. This chord is called a triad. 

Example of a C chord

Doesn't this mean that are technically thousands of chords?
Why yes, but most of them don't sound too well. The ones that are typically played sound well. However, the chords we are focusing on this blog is the beginner chords. There are only 24 of them, so no need to worry about memorizing a bunch of chords.

Alright 24 chords. What exactly are they?
Don't get too hasty! If you're a beginner I urge you to learn them all properly. If you just want a refresher, I urge you to head over to the master chord list. With that said, the chords we are dealing with are split into two parts:

    Major Chords
These are the "happy" sounding chords. They consist of a root, major third, and perfect fifth. No worries, I will go more in-depth about basic chord theory in another post. The important part is that there are only 12 major chords we are dealing with:
A
A#/Bb
B
C
C#/Db
D
D#/Eb
E
F
F#/Gb
G
G#/Ab
Now if you notice, the chords follow the alphabet, all the way from A to G. After G, it resets to A. The "#" stands for sharp and the "b" stands for flat. They both represent the same chord but in different ways. I'll go more into this in another post.
    Minor Chords
Next are the minor chords. As you might have guessed, these chords sound a lot more "sad". They consist of a root, minor third, and perfect fifth. Do you notice the difference between major and minor chords? That's right: the major and minor third changed. What does this mean to you? It means that once you learn the Major chords, the minor chords can be picked up easily as they are the same thing (except for one little change). The final 12 chords are:
Am
A#m/Bbm
Bm
Cm
C#m/Dbm
Dm
D#m/Ebm
Em
Fm
F#m/Gbm
Gm
G#m/Abm
It's like before, except with an "m" in front of it. The m stands for minor.

Final Thoughts
I hope none of this sounded too complicated to you and make you not want to learn the chords for piano! I promise it isn't too complicated. I will explain all of this more in depth so you can clearly understand things. This is just an overview of what I'll be teaching you. Stay tuned.

Why Learn the Piano

Why Should You Learn The Piano?
People ask me all the time why I learned the piano. I could give them a thousand reasons for why. However, it all boils down to that the piano seemed exciting to me. To learn all of the songs I liked to listen to and to be able to play an instrument fluently.


Well this particular website was not made to master the piano, but to teach a huge aspect of it. Basic chords are a huge part to every song. In fact most pop songs today are made of 4 chords. If you can play 4 chords, you can play literally millions of songs. I have a short yet funny YouTube video about chords and I urge you to watch it.

Axis of Awesome. They're hilarious.

See what I mean? There are so many songs out there to learn if you just know the basic chords. However, for some that may not be enough reason to learn chords for the piano. So I've come up with a  list of steps for why you should learn the chords for the piano. Everyone should learn them.

Reason 1: It will impress the hell out of people.
Have you ever been to a party or social event where someone is rocking out on a guitar or piano? I have and in fact I've been that guy. Everyone loved me for giving an impressive performance. They all came up to me afterward saying I must have worked years on mastering that song and that I was a master piano player. Actually, I spent only 10 minutes memorizing the chords and adding a little of my own style to that. It literally took me 10 minutes to learn a song and impress all of my friends

Reason 2: Once you master the basic chords, songs will take 10 minutes to learn. 
In my previous story, I said that I spent 10 minutes on memorizing the chords and then I could play the song. Well it's true. Songs are mostly made up of 4 chords. Memorize 4 chords and you've got the whole song.

Reason 3: It will make you smarter.
Studies have shown that if you pick up an instrument, at any age, you will become smarter. It increases that amount of neurons you have in your brain and it will make you more creative.

Reason 4: It's fun. Plain and simple.
After work I always loved just sitting down at my piano and playing a song that I just heard on the radio. That's right, if you learn the chords and practice enough, you can play practically any song on the radio quite easily. It just gives me such a good feeling to play piano and I enjoy it a lot.

Reason 5: It's easy.
Is learning to play the piano easier than other instruments? Definitely. Having learned guitar and violin, I can say that piano was the easiest out of all of them and helped me form the basis for playing other instruments well. With that said, does piano take lots of practice to learn? Yes. However, learning the basic, beginner chords first will make learning the piano as a breeze and make it fun.

Now, did that convince you? I'm going to be giving you a list of tips and tricks to master the basic chords. I will go through all of the chords individually so you can get them down. It's quite simple really and once you're done you'll be able to play plenty of songs.