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 Introduction
The Basics
Your first Piece
Whole/Half Tones
Common Chords
Fingering
Simple Tunes
Inversions
Slash Chords
Advanced Chords
Chord Revision
Blues
Jazz
Guided Tunes
Happy Birthday
Imagine
Video Lessons
We Are Young
More Tunes
Contact Me
Links
Link Exchange
Page views
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Ok congratulations on getting this far, you're almost ready to
unlock a whole host of songs! You just need to know a couple of
the most common chord types and how to work them out then you'll
be in business!
Once you work out the notes of the chords given below you would
normally play the chord by pressing all the notes of the chord at
the same time. Every time you work out a new chord you should try
this to hear how the chord sounds.
The Major Chord
You've already seen three of these(C F and G) before, in Silent
Night. Now I am going to give you the power to work out any Major
chord anywhere on the keyboard.
Say we wanted to work out the major chord G Major the process
is as follows(its probably best to practise this at the keyboard).
Find the note G on the keyboard this is known as the root note
of the chord.
G major chord
Next count up 4 half tones from G to get you to B, this is the
second note of your chord. Now count up 3 half tones from B to get
you to D. This is your G major chord G-B-D!
So the Major chord consists of the root note, a note 4 half tones
above the root note, a note 3 half tones above the middle note.
Thats it! As soon as you read that you just learnt all the major
chords on the keyboard!
The Major chord consists of the an interval of 4 half tones
followed by an interval of 3 half tones
Lets try another one, work out the A Major chord.
Find the root note, in this case A.
Count up 4 half tones from A to get C#.
Count up 3 half tones from C# to get E
And wolah! we have the A major chord, A - C# - E!
Want some more practise? Watch the video examples for how to work
out C
Major and E
Major.
Ok you're almost there, two more chords to go.
The Minor Chord
The minor chord is another chord that is used commonly in many
popular songs, it has a sadder more laid back tone to it then the
major chord.
The Minor chord cosists of an interval of 3 half tones followed
by an interval of 4 half tones
What does this mean? Well the process is the same as the process
to work out the major chord. Suppose we wanted the G minor chord
(commonly denoted as Gm) we would start by finding the root note,
in this case G. Now count up 3 half tones from G to get Bflat, now
count up 4 half tones from Bflat to get D and theres your Gm chord,
G - Bflat - D!
I want you to convince yourself that the following minor chords
are indeed correct, it will be easier to do this if you have a keyboard
in front of you.
| Am = A C E |
| Cm = C Eflat G |
| Fm = F Aflat C |
Excellent! One more chord to go then we can start looking at some
tunes.
The 7th Chord
This is another very popular chord in music, it is known as the
7th chord or dominant 7th. It is usually written on chord sheets
as C7, D7, E7 etc, and it is very similar to the major chord.
The 7th chord consists of an interval of 4 half tones followed
by an interval of 3 half tones followed by an interval of 3 half
tones
The 7th chord thus is comprised of four notes, not three like
the previous chords.
I will walk you through the process of working out a 7th chord.
Suppose we want E7, we find the root note - E on the keyboard.
Now count up 4 half tones from E to get to G#
Now count up 3 half tones from G# to get you to B
Now count up 3 half tones from B to get you to D
So your E7 chord would consist of E - G# - B - D
Try to work out the following 7th chords
| G7 = G B D F |
| A7 = A C# E G |
| E7 = E G# B D |
Phew! That was a lot of information wasnt it? Well now that its
done, you are ready to forge on and play some tunes!
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