Learn Piano with Basic Chords

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Everything we play/ sing is made up of chords, but often, they’re more advanced inverted chords with melodies and harmonies beyond basic chording. When you play basic chords, it gets difficult to know what song you’re playing, because you’re removing the extra stuff that helps you identify it. That’s where we want to begin. Nothing extra, nice and easy, to Start Playing NOW. 

3 on a Knee

Basic hand/ eye coordination is important. Place your right hand on your leg or table and curve your fingers to make the shape of a C. Press down with your thumb, middle finger and pinky. This is essentially a basic chord of 1, 3, & 5. 1 is your thumb, 3 is your middle finger, and 5 is your pinky. Playing from the thumb to your pinky and counting 1-5 as you go can help develop some coordination before moving to a piano or keyboard. 

Root Position

Basic chords are left in root position to make it easier for you to understand where you are. Root position, is simply putting your right thumb on whatever the name of the chord is. So, if it’s a G chord, your right thumb is on G and then you play every other note. So your thumb is on 1, your middle finger is on 3, and your pinky is on 5. If your thumb is on the 3 or the 5, you would call that an inverted chord. Because you are changing what note you start on. But for now, that’s keep it “basic.”

What To Do With the Left Hand?

Once you’re comfortable playing the full chords with the right hand, let’s add the left hand. When you play the bass note with the left hand, it sounds full. If you play full chords with the left hand, however it can sound muddy, especially the lower you go on the piano. So for now, let’s add a single note with the left hand.  

When you play a G chord with the right hand, play a G note with the left hand. It can really be as simple as adding the first note of the chord, an octave down. (An octave is the distance between 2 of the same note that are closest to each other. That means if it’s a C, you can go to the next C up and that’s moving 1 octave up or go the next C down and that’s 1 octave down.)

Left Hand Position

If you’re focused on where the next chord is for your right hand, it can be frustrating trying to think about where the left hand needs to go… Ultimately, do what’s comfortable and helps you succeed, but here’s something that might help. Place your left thumb on the key that you’re playing in. If you’re playing in the key of G, put your left thumb on the G below middle C. This means that your thumb is on the 1 chord (G) of the key (G), your pinky is on the 4 chord (C), your ring finger is on the 5 chord (D), and your middle finger is on the 6 chord (E). When you get to a 2 chord (A) move your thumb up just to the next note up. This works in all the different keys and means you barely move your left hand and can focus more on your right hand.

Rhythm

A great way to start is just to hold the chord until it’s time to change chords. Especially with pad, string and ambient sounds, you can hold the chords without playing any rhythms or patterns and let the rest of the band cover beats, strumming etc…. If it seems necessary or if all you have is a piano, hold the bass notes for every chord and play the right hand for every 1 beat or every 2 beats as it sounds good. You CAN play too much. Less is typically more…

Cheat Sheets

Check out the Cheat Sheets for Piano Basic Chords. And let’s play piano NOW!

Have questions? Let us know how we can help!

by Lance Maddox