Q. I'm trying to learn how to play piano, and I saw something called a piano chord. What exactly does that mean?
A. A piano chord is no different from a regular chord except that it's played...on the piano. By simplest definition, a chord is a group of at least three tones. This could be, for example, A C# E, which is the A major chord. Any less than that would be a single tone or interval, which doesn't really establish key. Any more than three notes would produce seventh chords (for example, A #C E G, which is the A 7th chord) ninth chords (A C# E G B), and so on, usually up to thirteenths in jazz music.
There are entire courses built on the study of chords, or tonality. If you're interested in pop or jazz chords, you might want to look into this lightweight guide:
http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Chord-Dictionary-Handy-Guide/dp/0882841548/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272218959&sr=8-1
Note that it takes an entire lifetime to learn about all the possible chords and their functions in music, to really get to know what role each chord plays and which chord falls in place most naturally and meaningfully in a piece of music. Chord identification and other purely theory-related exercises won't take all too long, though.
Good luck with your studies, and I hope you keep it up. :)
Major II V I piano chords vs Minor II V I piano chords?
Q. I have learned all my major II V I chords on the piano and was told that the next step is to learn the minor II V I chords. Could some explain minor II V I or give an example. I could probably figure it out from there. Also, what comes after minor II V Is? What is the next thing I should learn to become a better jazz pianist?
A. There isn't much to it. For a major key, the formula is root, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step. All the chords of every key are pretty much the same.
Chord I is a major, Chord II is a Minor, Chord III is a minor, chord IV is a major, Chord V is a major, Chord VI is a minor, Chord VII is (half) diminished.
ex: C, D-, E-, F, G, A-, Bdim
If you know all twelve of your major keys then you already know all twelve of your minor keys. I will tell you how it works. In music there are relative minors. A relative minor is the sixth degree of a key. So in the key of C, that would be chord number VI.
Each of the twelve keys has a different relative minor. To figure out the key of the relative minor, you just rewrite the major key starting with chord number VI, in this case A- as your root.
ex: chord i is A-, chord ii is Bdim, chord iii is c, chord iv is d-, chord v is not E- but E7(you could still use E-), and chord vi is F and chord vii is G.
It is that simple. You could do that for every major key and you will know all the minor keys.
In minor keys chord i is minor, chord ii, is (half) diminished, chord iii is major, chord iv, is minor, chord v is dominant7 (or minor), chord vi is major and chord vii is major.
(root, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step) (whole step to get back to beginning)
So chord progression II, V, I in a major key is minor, major, major. ex: Key of C: D-, G, C
In a minor key, ii, v, i is: diminished, dominant 7, and minor. ex: key of C-: D Half diminished, G7, and C-.
I hope that helped. If you need more help with anything you can just email me.
any help on piano chords, like C chord progression, how many chords should I play with C major?
Q.
A. Well, maybe I can help.
Learn C major - C E G
and why not C minor for good measure - C Eb G
They start with C so they are called C chords.
Now if you look at the interval between the notes in each of these chords, the number of notes including the black notes between the C and the E for example and the E and the G, you will find that if you move the first note (the C) to any place on the keyboard, G for example, you can work out G major buy counting the notes in between to find the other notes of the Chord. If you work your way up you will get B and D to make G major. when you count the notes in between remember to count the black notes too.
Now you can work out and make any major and minor chord on the keyboard.
You can probably play many chord based music from guitar tab websites now, all be it rather slowly.
Learn C major, F major, G major, A minor, D minor and E minor for most songs written in the C
You can play the blues with C, F and G
Lastly, Notice that the notes that make up the chord can be played in any order (fairly close together) and still be called a C chord. When you see C/G this means that G the lowest note not the C, they're the same notes just re-arranged.
Hope this helps and have fun with it.
Rob
Powered by Yahoo! Answers