How To Finally Understand Piano Chords

0:00 Are you using chord charts or books to learn chords? Stop doing that. They're actually slowing down or even stopping your progress. Why should you believe me? I'm a classically trained pianist who taught myself how to play rock, jazz, pop, and just about any other type of music that is based on chords. It took me many years of trial and error and thousands of hours of practice. But it doesn't have to be that way for you because in this video, which is really a mini course, I'll show you a much faster and better way to learn chords. Not only that, but you'll understand why learning the language of chords will help you

0:46 learn your songs faster and remember them better. whether you play pop, rock, jazz, or yes, even classical music. But here's the thing, you don't learn the language of chords by looking at chord charts or flipping through chord books. There's a much better way. And because I'm your best piano playing friend, I'm going to give you a simple practice routine that you can do in just a few minutes a day that will get you there faster than you ever imagined. Sound good? All right, let's get started. All right, my friend. I know what you're probably thinking. I'm busy. I barely have time or energy, let's be real, to

1:34 practice. Why should I add yet another thing to my practice routine that isn't a song I want to play? If you're thinking that, you have a very good point. But hear me out. Knowing chords isn't just a nice to have skill. Chords are the language of music. And when you actually understand how chords work, everything, I mean, everything you play on the piano starts to make more sense. It sticks faster in your hands and your mind and it makes you feel like you actually know what you're doing when you sit here. And yeah, this is true for

2:19 beginner pianists all the way to advanced. You don't need to wait to get to a certain level before you start understanding chords. So, what exactly is wrong with getting a book or a chart that lists every possible chord you could ever play? Well, imagine trying to learn any other language by getting a dictionary that lists every possible word you can say in that language. Is that how we learn to speak a language? No. We don't just open up a dictionary, memorize random words, and then expect to be able to easily carry on a conversation in that language.

3:07 What's the best way to learn? Immersion. If you're surrounded by people speaking that language, seeing the signs on buildings in that language, and having to communicate in that language, you're going to learn that language in a way that is actually useful for you. So you're not memorizing a sentence like >> huh >> I'm looking at you Dolingo app and wondering why you can't order your lunch in Paris. So instead of using a chord chart or chord book, you're better off spending a few minutes a day building chords at the piano according to the system I'll give

3:54 you later in this video. And then you want to practice those chords in patterns that actually happen in real music. This is how you become fluent at the language of music. And this is how everything then you start to learn to play sticks better and it makes more sense. Now before you say, "Hold on, I don't play rock or jazz, so I don't need to know about chords." Wait. I want to play you a snippet of a piece of music you may have heard once or twice. And it is made up almost entirely of chords that are played one note at a time, which we call broken chords.

4:46 [music] So that was Moonlight Sonata, which I have have a full tutorial for. I'll put the links below. Now, I can learn this piece note by note and hope that at some point I'll be able to play it smoothly and even maybe memorize it or I can go

5:34 through and say, "Oh, here's what's happening. This chord is a C# minor chord." Next, I keep that same C# minor [music] chord, but I put a B on the bottom. Now I have some information up here other than just oh my goodness, what's the next note? The next chord is an A major chord. Easy. Okay. Next, I've got a D major chord with an F sharp on the bottom. And so on. [music] So, this gives my mind and my my hands a sort of file folder to put the musical information in, which makes it easier for me to remember and recall that information into my fingers when I need it. In other

6:21 words, when I'm playing the piece. So, all music, whether classical, jazz or rock or pop or whatever, is basically a bunch of chords. [laughter] Either the notes are played at the same time called blocked chords or they're split up called broken chords or arpeggios. Okay. Unfortunately, classical musicians are the least able to use their knowledge of chord theory because that's not how classical music is generally taught. We're taught to look at a bunch of notes on a page and then put our fingers on the corresponding keys. And if you've taken traditional piano

7:07 lessons, even if you didn't want to become a classical pianist, this is also how you were taught. Why? Because chances are this is how your teacher was also taught. All right. So, if you're still with me, I hope that means you understand why I made this video and why it's important for you to watch it as a pianist and that you're ready to level up on your piano skills. Let's move on to the secret I wish someone had told me when I started playing jazz and rock piano. It seems like there are a thousand chords to learn and that is very

7:54 intimidating. I myself became very discouraged when I started learning to play jazz. How in the world would I ever learn and memorize so many chords, much less be able to use them in an actual song I wanted to play. But I really wanted to understand the genre of music. So I kept at it and eventually I discovered the truth. There are only a few types of chords and even fewer that we use most commonly in music. I didn't need to memorize every chord in every key like I had originally thought. What I needed to do was to understand how the most common

8:41 types of chords are built and then practice them together in the orders that they most commonly appear in songs. We call these orders of chords chord progressions or if you want to be a hip jazz cat changes man. All right. So what are the most common chord types you're going to find in the music that you play? Here we go. Major, minor [music] dominant 7th, major 7, and minor 7. Just starting with these five types of chords will get you about 80% of the way

9:27 through most music. Yes, you can get more fancy later on, but let's first master the basics. So, remember when I said you don't need to memorize every chord in every key? It's true. We're going to instead use chord templates. Every single type of chord has a template or a formula that you only need to learn one time because once you know that template, you can instantly build that chord type on any root note. And that is way faster and more user friendly than memorizing charts. I'm

10:12 going to show you the template of each type of chord. Then I'll use that template on a C root note and then show you how you can use that template on another root note. >> Three, two, one. >> Now, before I start, I'm going to give you the million learning tip that will change everything for you if you do it. Please do not watch this video. That's not how you learn. Get a pencil and a notebook. Write down the templates as I show them to you. Re-watch parts of the video that contain information that feels unfamiliar to you and actually sit

11:00 at your piano and do the exercises. I could easily have created a PDF of this for you, but let's face facts. you're going to download the PDF and it's just going to be another thing to add to your stack of digital clutter and that's not really going to help you become a better pianist. You also learn information a lot better and deeper if you have to generate it from your own mind. If you have to write it down. Much better to write with a a pencil and a paper than to use a computer. I am not a scientist, but scientific studies have been done that show this to be true. Uh, one other thing, I sometimes get really

11:46 interesting comments. Sorry, slight tangent because maybe you have this question. So, if I create a PDF, you're going to give me your email address and I'm going to send you the PDF. That's how it works. Some people have accused me of trying to get your email address so I can sell it. That's not how this works, guys. I I don't I've never tried, but probably for a 100 emails, you're going to get 10 cents or maybe. I don't have no idea. But if you do want to be on my mailing list to get to straight to your inbox, you can sign up below. And if you trust me enough to learn from me, then please trust me enough to know that I'm not going to be a jerk with your email address. All right, are you still here? Good. [laughter] Let's talk about those chord templates.

12:37 First thing you need to be able to do is count to four. If you can do that, this is going to be very easy for you. All right. So, let's start with the major chord. Major chord has three notes. [music] So, we call it a triad. Try meaning three. Like triangle, tricycle, three. It's got three notes. All right. It's got the root note, which is the name of the chord, C. It's got the middle note for now. We call that the third of the chord. And we've got the fifth [music] of the chord. So, don't worry about why they're called that. I'm going to give you just the most important information here. Okay? So, from the root to the third of the chord, we count up four

13:25 notes. We don't count this guy. 1 2 3 4. [snorts] four notes on the piano. Okay. From the middle note or the third of the chord to the top note or the fifth of the chord, we count up three notes. So, we start here and we go to the right. 1 2 3. So, it's a four [music] plus a three gives you a major chord. Remember, we don't count the note that we're on. Okay? Write this down. the template for a major chord. You have the root note. You count up four notes. One, two, three, four. For the third of the chord, then you count up three notes for the fifth of the chord. 1 2 3. There we go. Okay.

14:12 The minor chord is also a triad. Oo, that sounds different, [music] doesn't it? And in this one, the four and the three are switched around. So from the bottom note to the the third, from the root to the third, we count three notes. 1 2 3. And from this note to the top note, or from the third to the fifth, we count four notes. 1 2 3 4 minor chord. [music] Remember when I said you have to pause the video, take notes, and try this on your own. This would be it, my friend. I get comments all the time in the under my videos. I don't get it. Okay. It's not a TV show. You have to stop and work. Okay. All right. So,

15:00 those are our two triads that we're going to learn. The most common. Next, we're going to do a four note chord. Okay. So, we'll start going going back to our major triad, C major. If I want to make a dominant seventh chord, I just use my [music] major triad as the bass and I add one note to it. Here's how I Here's how I find that one note. That's a C. [music] I find the next C up and I count down two notes. 1 2 [music] 7th chord. So major chord, that's a C. Find [music] the next C up and count down two notes. 1 2.

15:47 That's called a C [music] dominant 7. Okay. Let's talk about the major 7th chord. We start again [music] with a major triad. H. Okay. Then we find that octave from the root [music] and we count down one note. One. There it is. [music] Major 7. Let's do that again. Major triad. Here's a C. I [music] find the next C up and from here I count down how many notes? One. And that [music] gives me major 7. That is so pretty, isn't it? Okay, we've got one more chord. It's called the minor 7th chord. So for this one, what do you think we're going to use as the bass? Major or minor triad? Minor 7th chord? We're going to use the minor triad. Okay, here's our [music] C

16:35 minor. Okay, find the octave again. Count down two notes. What? One, two. That's what we did for the dominant 7th. [music] It is. Except for the dominant 7th, we had a major triad. For the minor 7 chord, we have a minor triad. So, do you see how they're all related to one another? I hope so. This would be a really great place to check your notes and make sure you've got it. You know, you got that pause button. You can scroll backwards. Okay. Now you have the templates, but you need a way to practice, a practice routine that you do all the time that will get these chords into your fingers and your brain so that you can actually use the chords in a

17:21 meaningful way. We'll do that next. Here's a practice routine I wish that someone had given me when I was starting out. You can do it in under five minutes a day. And if you do it regularly, you'll start feeling the difference in your playing very quickly. But you do have to put in the time. If not daily, then every other day. I stress that this is not a one-time thing. It's the repetition that makes you fluent. Just like in learning a new language. I will say that the difference between adults who get good at playing piano and those who struggle a lot is that the ones who get good show up day after day

18:08 and don't expect miracles to happen because they practiced a few times. Sorry if that seems harsh. Okay, here we go. So, the first thing we're going to do is master one template a day. And if you don't master it on that day, it's okay. you can come back the next day and work on it some more. The thing about learning is um you tend to forget for the next day. This is completely normal. It's a part of being human. It's not you. You're not too old. You're not lacking talent. I have been playing almost my whole life. And I still have to um start back a little bit when I come back to practice the next day. This is completely normal. So, if you find that you practice on a particular day and it feels really good, then you come

18:53 back the next day and you're like, I don't remember, congratulations. You're human. All right, don't let that stop you. So, we're going to pick a chord type. Let's start with major triads. Okay, so using our template, I'm going to create a major triad on C because C is very easy for people to understand for some reason. Okay. So, C, remember our template. Count up four. 1 2 3 4. Count up three. 1 2 3. That's my C major triad. Don't worry about doing this quickly. Just aim for clear thinking. On some days, you're going to play with the right hand. On other days, you can play

19:38 with the left hand. You can play both hands together, play them blocked or broken. So, I'm going to show you all of these. So here it is blocked with the right hand. I can play it in front of me. I can play it here. I can play it here. Doesn't matter. It's still a a C chord. I can play it with the left hand. Blocked. Do this with me. [music] But make sure you're not just copying me. Copying is important, but it without the understanding it's kind of useless in the end. Copying is just a place to start. It's not the end. Okay. Here's your C chord. Okay. [music] So that's blocked meaning all the notes are together. I can play them hands together going up the piano or going down the piano. Why should we be moving around the piano? Because you don't just want

20:25 to learn it in one place. You want to be able to transfer your knowledge wherever it needs to go. And we're not just memorizing notes because with the C chord, it's easy to remember. It's all white keys. But we'll get into this in a when I do the the other keys. So, we can also practice broken meaning one note at a time, going up or going [music] down. If you want to get really good really fast, here's what you do. You sing the note names out loud as you play them. And you don't have to be a great singer, right? What does this do? Again, it really helps your mind uh learn because you're generating that sound with your body. So you could do this C E [singing] G and then back down.

21:14 G E C. [music] You can sing it before or you can sing it after. C E G. Okay. G E C. Wherever it's comfortable for you. doesn't have to be beautiful singing, but this will definitely like super quickly get this stuff into your brain and your body. Okay? But we don't find C chords always like this all the time. Out in the wild, sometimes the notes of the chord happen in a different order. You can play these three notes in any combination and it's still a C chord. It's true

22:01 because the components are all the same, right? The ingredients are the same. C, E, and G [music] in any combination is still a C chord. So, you can also practice when you get a little more comfortable what we call inversions. Inversions means flipping the chord so that a different note is on the bottom. It's not always the root note. You can sing it E [singing] G C G C E. It's kind of high, right? And then if you flip flip it again, we're back to what we call root position. Just in case you're curious with there's names for these positions. Root

22:48 position, first inversion, second inversion, back to root. It's not important to know that. But I do want you to understand that just because here the E is on the bottom, that doesn't make it an E chord. Okay? Because the spelling of it, the three notes of it are still C, E, and G in some order. Now, let's say it's day number two of your chord practice routine. You did really well with the C major chord. You know the template, and you want to branch out a little bit. Okay. Okay. Well, we've got all these other keys on our keyboard that we can choose as the root uh note of our chord. I'm going to pick a note at random. Let's pick B flat. Does that black key scare you? It

23:35 shouldn't because you have this super tool called the template. All right, we're going to do this pretty quickly. I'm not going to go through all the inversions because I hope you understand by now. All right, so here's my B flat. I'm not going to freak out. I'm not going to go like this. Go. Ah, which one sounds good? No. Template. B flat. We go up how many? For a major? Four notes. 1 2 3 4. And then we go up how many? Three notes. 1 2 3. B flat major. Boom. Easy. B flat D F. Can go through all those practice things that I already explained before. All right. So, let's take a look at the

24:22 minor chord. Remember, the minor chord and the major chord, pretty similar, right? They just have reverse order of how many notes we're moving. So, okay, let's go back to our good old C. We have to go up three. 1 2 3. We have to go up four. 1 2 3 4. C [music] minor. You can practice it the same way we talked about before. Okay. Inversions. You can take this really far if you want or you can just keep it like [music] that. Like that's enough for me for now. Perfectly fine. Okay. Let's pick another note to create a minor triad on. I'll do another black key so that you guys stop thinking that black keys are somehow I

25:08 don't know special. [laughter] Okay. E flat. Here we go. E flat. We're going to go up three notes. 1 2 3. That's a G flat. We're going to go up four notes. 1 2 [music] 3 4. E flat minor. This is why it's really um important for serious musicians to all play piano because piano it's so easy to see the theory of music. You can't see it in a voice. You can't see it on a flute, right? It's all kind of conceptual, but here you can totally see where the notes are. Okay. So, E flat, [music] G flat, B flat. All right. Now, are you ready to get a bit more sophisticated? In the next section,

25:54 we're going to tackle those four note chords. Let's go. All right. As we spoke about earlier, I know you were speaking back to me. The major and minor chords are the basis of the four note chords that we're going to play. Okay. So, the dominant seventh chord and the major 7th chords are both built on top of the major triad by adding just one note. Let's do it. Let's say this is your third day of practice and you're feeling really good about major chords. Okay, let's take our C major triad and let's build a dominant [music] seventh chord. Okay, so we know dominant

26:40 seventh chord is an octave from the root. We go down two notes. One, two. There we go. Now, you'll notice in a four note chord, [music] the inversions, we have more inversions. I was going to say the inversions are more. That doesn't make any sense. Okay, we have more inversions. So, we got four notes. Okay. So, we can play it like this. We can play it like this. This is why it's important to say the notes out loud as you say them so that you you can hear what you just said. So, let's do that. C E G B flat. Okay. So, now you're just going to take that C and jump it up here. E G B

27:25 [music] flat C. You take that E and jump it up here. G, B flat, C, E. And the last inversion, take that G and put it up here. B flat, C, E, G. You can also go back or you can go down. I don't want to give you too much to do. This is a simple practice routine. And even if you just do exactly what I'm saying, you're going to be miles ahead of where you are now. Okay. So we do we can make a let's let's choose a different note now. I think you understand the process. I'm going to do a major 7th chord in the key of D. So first I make a D major triad. I go up

28:10 four notes. 1 2 3 4. [music] I go up three notes. 1 2 3. There's my D major triad. And I want to make a major 7th chord. So I find the octave of the root and I go down one note. Ah, pretty. Okay, you practice it the same ways that I just told you. We've got one more chord to go. The four notes that we're learning here, and it is based on the minor triad. Let's take E minor. And we're going to make an we're we're going to make an E minor 7th chord. Okay, first let's make an E minor chord. E, we go up three notes. 1 2 3. We go up four notes. 1 2 3 4 E minor

28:57 [music] triad. And we know for a minor 7th chord, we need to find the octave up and move two notes down. 1 2. That's an E minor 7th chord. Do you see how these chords are all related to one another? So, we're not just like, you know, flipping through a book going, "Oh, this chord. Oh, that." No, it's a family. Isn't that sweet? Okay. So, at first you practice one type of chord a day, just for a few minutes. Uh, you don't need to play every chord built on every single note on the piano. Because the truth is, in most of the music that you're going to play, especially if you're playing more simple pieces, you're not going to play in keys that have a whole bunch of sharps and flats.

29:44 Mostly you're going to be in C major, G major, F, and so on. So once you've gotten a little bit comfortable with these chords, and I really stress the words a little bit comfortable, you don't have to master them, you can start to practice them in combinations with one another, which is where really this stuff starts to come together for you. Let's do that next. Hear me, perfectionist friends. >> [snorts] >> You don't need to master each type of chord before practicing chord progressions. It all kind of works together. You'll get more fluent with the language of

30:31 chords. As you put them into common combinations, we're going to do four of these combinations. Uh, and it's going to be so much fun. So, here we go. So if we're in the key of C, we're going to play the chord that starts on the first note of the scale. The C [music] chord happens to be a major chord. Then we play the note that starts on or that's built on I should say that is built on the sixth note of the scale. 1 2 3 4 [music] 5 6. We make a chord on that. How do I know? Well, I just look at the scale notes. Whatever note is in that scale, those are the notes that I use. I don't really have to

31:16 think about it. Okay, we call this the six [music] chord, A minor. Then we make a chord built on the fourth note of the scale. 1 2 3 [music] 4 F major. You don't have to really understand all this. I'm just showing it to you so you have some idea of what's going on. And then the note built on the fifth note of the scale. 1 2 3 4 5 G major. [music] This is why scales are important, my friends who comment saying, "I don't tell me to practice scales." Okay, you don't have to, but So, here's what this sounds like. C [music] major, A minor, F major, G major. [music] So, very common, especially uh music of

32:05 the 1950s. Uh you might know this one. >> [music] >> C, A minor, F major, G major. I can't do it that while I I speak. Okay, so C major, A minor, F major. There we go. [music] G major. Okay, I guess I can't do it while I speak. So, super common. You can practice it with both hands like I just did. You can practice with the right hand playing the chord and the left hand playing just the root note. And it [music] really helps to say what chord it is. Again, you're going to learn it much better this way. C major, [music] A minor,

32:51 F major, G major. [music] Okay, you can play it like this. Broken. It already sounds like you're about to [music] play an actual song because you kind of are. Okay, you can play the right hand root of the chord, left hand arpeggiate. I hope you're writing down these options so when you sit down to practice, you can just kind of look through the list and see which one you want to do. That pause button on this video is a magical thing, isn't it? C chord, [music] A minor, F major,

33:37 G major. Okay, [music] so you can practice like that. Well, what if you want to practice it in a different key? All you do is pick another scale because remember, I'm just taking these notes from the scale. I do have a video that shows you how to build scales. Uh I'm going to link that below too so you can watch it and learn. For now, let's do the same chord progression in the key of G major. Just going to show it to you. One chord. [music] What's this one? Do you remember? Six chord, four chord, five [music] chord. In other words, it's the G major,

34:24 E minor, [music] C major, D major. And again, you can practice it the ways that I already showed you. Let's move on to combination number two. This is the pop combination. I think it's the same one that Axis of Awesome. It was going around a few years ago where those guys were just playing like every song pretty much ever written and they're using four chords. Okay, it's really quite simple. We again we start with the one chord [music] which is whatever the scale is named for. Then we go to the five chord in the key of [music] C major. 1 2 3 4 5. Okay, [music] so G major. Then we go to

35:09 the six chord. The one right above a minor. [music] Then the four, four chord. Okay. The Beatles used it. I mean, everyone has used it. You can practice this one in the same way. Remember, you're just going to pick different combinations, different chords on different days. Don't stress out about it. Make it fun. Like five minutes at a time, okay? Make it fun. Let's move on to combination number three. Very, very similar to combination number two. In fact, it's the same thing, but we're putting the chords in a

35:57 slightly different order. Some people call this the sad song chord progression. So basically instead of starting on the one chord, we're starting on the six and then we're going through the whole progression. So in the key of C major, 1 2 3 [music] 4 5 6, we're starting on the A minor 4. F major one [music] chord C major. Whoa. [music] Sounds like a song, right? Okay. So, that's it. You're just using the same four chords, but we're starting in a different spot and kind of looping it, and we get a very different sound.

36:42 Boom. See what I meant when I said like the same chords are used all over the place? They really are. Okay. Now, moving on to combination number four. This is like the classic jazz progression. And this is the one where we're going to practice our four note chords. And even though this is the basis of jazz, it's actually very, very, very, very common in classical music, too. Here's how it goes. We're going to stay in the key of C major and we're starting with the second note of the scale. And if you're looking on the screen, you see we're just selecting every other note in the scale. D, F, A. [music] That makes it a minor triad. And the C 1 2 makes it a D minor 7

37:33 chord. [music] Okay. Our next chord. So that's the two. We're going to start on the fifth note of the scale. 1 2 3 4 5. We play every other note. What is that? Well, we've got a major triad. And this one, two. Okay, that is a dominant seventh chord. I know probably if you're just watching this video all the way through, you're like, "Wait, too much information." Yeah, remember when I said you have to stop and practice. Okay. [laughter] All right. So, [music] that's a dominant seventh chord. So, we had our minor 7, our dominant 7, and our last chord is built on the root C, E, G, B. Huh? We've got a major triad

38:22 and we've got going down one note. [music] That is a major seven chord. So in this one progression, we're practicing three kinds of the most common seventh chords. Yes, there are others. Let's walk before we can run. Okay. So here's how you can practice Sid. playing the root in the left hand, the chord in the right [music] hand, because you've already practiced your chords, but you may have be playing in a key where it's a little more challenging. If you know that it's a minor 7th chord, you use the template for a minor 7th chord, and you make your chord. Okay. [music] Then we've got the five chord, five, seven. That's a dominant 7. And then the C major 7 chord. Isn't that

39:11 pretty? You can get really fancy with this stuff, but again, we want to get the basics. If you just get this, this is going to really help you to absorb your music better and understand it. You could do that. [music] Okay. Now, before you go, I know you're really eager to click away and look at the next thing. [laughter] A few things I learned the hard way, but you don't need to. Number one, already said it, don't overdo it. A few minutes every day is much better than one frantic hour once a week. That is not sustainable, and it's actually not effective. Your hands and your brain need time to absorb,

39:58 integrate, and own this knowledge so that you can actually use it. Focus on understanding what you're doing, not just playing over and over copying somebody. Write down your templates. Practice finding the notes that fit into those templates. This is where the learning happens. You we focus on the playing, but there's stuff that happens before the playing. When you practice your chord progressions, take your time. [snorts] Figure out what the next chord is. instead of throwing your hands on the piano and hoping for the best. [gasps] It does take time in the beginning. But I can tell you from personal experience, once you understand and apply what I've

40:45 taught you in this video, a few minutes a day practicing these templates and chord progressions will pay off much, much faster than you might think. So go ahead, put down those chord charts, start using this guy up here, and truly own the language of music. This is the best shortcut in the world. Now, if you want to learn how to make any scale, watch this video next. Keep practicing, have fun, and I'll see you soon. Bye.