What My Piano Teacher Never Told Me About Chords, Part 1

in music •  7 years ago  (edited)

What My Piano Teacher Never Told Me About Chords


or my alternative, less interesting title:

How to Play Chords on the Piano: Part 1, Major Triads


What did my piano teacher never tell me about chords? Well, I suppose that's a little misleading. I had taken 10 years of piano lessons, and I had learned how to play lots and lot of chords, but what I didn't know is what they were called.

So then my first few experiences in bands were so fear-inducing until I realized that I already knew what I was doing! Still, there was a lot that I wasn't taught, like how to build chords if I forgot what a D-flat dim7 was. It was a Great Mystery, but it doesn't have to be.


In this video series, I'll cover all of the basics that you need to know, plus get into some more advanced chord theory for those who are interested. While I don't intend to get into jazz harmony, it will provide you with a good basis to get started in jazz chords as well.


In the video, I do mention playing through the Circle of 5ths and scales with primary (major) chord progressions for each key. I've provided a sheet below that shows what fingering to use for scales as well as writing out all of the primary chords in each key signature, following the Circle of 5ths:

Major Scales, Chords & Arpeggios

Join me next time for Part 2, where I discuss minor, diminished, and augmented triads.


If you enjoyed this video, please follow, upvote, and resteem. I write posts on singing, playing piano, nature, and cats.

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wooohooo I am going to actually learn something!!! Teach me oh wise one.

I accept! Thanks for the exposure! I'll learn ya good ;)

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Music theory - run away!

I have a vague recollection of using the circle of 5ths to plan for key changes.

I swear its not a music torture device :)

This was my first interesting thing I found when first playing! The circle of 5ths. It takes me 10 mins to finger to hit all cords in the circle. lol

upvoted @morodiene nice post plz visit my wall when you free thanks alot have a nice day

Excellent work, as always. You have a good teaching voice here. I'm learning more about piano than I really wanted to know, but that's not a bad thing.

Maybe someday you'll learn! :)

that's pretty helpful thanks a lot for sharing and keep on posting ;)

You're welcome! More to come ;)

I never learned chords either and forget about scales. It took me until high school to learn chords and college to fully learn scales. Great information!

Thanks! Ya, it may not be the most exciting thing to work on, but man, it pays off in the long run if you do a little work early on.

Thank you for taking the time to make this video. Does it make sense that I have been "Playing" the piano for 3 years and I still have no clue what I am doing other that the major cords? I make sounds that sound good to me, but some notes I could not tell you what I am hitting. lol

I'll be addressing all those other chords soon! Piano takes a long time to learn and there are so many aspects of it, so 3 years isn't really that long relatively speaking. That's what also makes it so much fun though: always more to learn around the next corner! :)

That's a great video, Erin. I love how you have the notes superimposed above the piano keys. You really start people right from the basics. I would love something like this for playing bass, although I'm sure some of the concepts would translate. Great job--you're adding a lot of value here!

Thanks, Matt. Hopefully there will be more advanced videos to come, but I find that there's usually a lot of holes in people's knowledge about the very basic stuff. Skip over that and it doesn't usually end well.

hey this is a great lesson, im glad you took the time to explain this, i remembered when i was studying it, it was really hard that time, but when you understand it, it turns very familiar and usefull, especially for jazz and latin music. hugs and follow for you <3

It's amazing, I took 10 years of lessons and this was never explained! It's not hard, though, if you think about it simply. Then it's fun :D

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