
If you look closely, you’ll see that there is a white key under each of your five fingers. The fingering for playing the chord progression C, E, G is as follows: thumb, middle finger, pinky.
The goal is to be able to play notes and chords as comfortably as possible. If you play a different bass note, then the chord can sound open and unfinished.įingering refers to which fingers are placed on which keys.
If C is the bass note of a C chord, then the chord will sound finished. If this is the case, then E is the bass note of the chord. This type of variation is always specified in the sheet music because it gives the chord a different ‘colour’! This means that G is the bass note of the C chord. Sometimes, a chord will be denoted as C/G. You can play any C on the keyboard, as long as it’s lower than the rest of the notes in the chord.
In a C chord, the C is the bass note (C is also the root of the C chord). How do you play a bass note? It’s important to know that the bass note is the lowest (the furthest left) key in the entire chord. By pressing a minimum of three notes with your right hand and one bass note with your left, you can play a solid, complete chord.
#Once and for all piano chords free#
The chord progressions above (CEG, EGC and GCE) are known as inversions, which you can play in any octave on the keyboard.Įverything you have learned up to now is to be played with your right hand, which means your left hand is free to play the bass note. If you play the chord too low on the keyboard, it has a tendency to sound dark and cluttered. You can also try different variations of the C chord, as long as C, E and G are in the same octave. You can start playing the chord in the root position by pressing the C note first, then the E, and finally the G. It doesn’t matter which C, E or G notes you play on the keyboard, but professionals agree that it sounds best to play the C, E and G notes that are in the same octave. The very first chord played when the vocals begin is the C chord! Go to YouTube or your favourite music player and look up the song ‘Let it Be’ by the Beatles. You can try playing multiple Cs, Es and Gs at once, as long as you play at least one of each! Play any three C, E and G notes on your own piano or keyboard. See the keyboard depicted below – all the C, E and G notes in every octave are marked with a dot. As mentioned before, this chord consists of the notes C, E and G. The C note is always the white key directly before a group of two black keys.
If you’re overwhelmed by the amount of keys, concentrate for a moment only on the black keys.The black keys have two names because they are located between two notes on the major scale.Think of it like a child and a grown man singing the same song – they are both singing the same melody, but the notes that the man sings are in a lower register than what the child is singing. The rest of the keys are a repetition of the same notes but in different octaves, meaning they are either higher or lower in pitch. If you look closely, you will see only twelve different notes. Do you want to know more about chords? We offer various music theory books that tell you all you need to know!Īt the top of this blog, there is an image of a keyboard. Below, you will find a table of commonly-used chords. A standard C chord (C major) consists of the notes C, E and G. A chord consists of three or more different notes that are played at the same time.