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Ok, I'm completely new here and this is going to sound like either a stupid or incoherent question, but here we go...

I can't play the piano properly. I have always just played (on a very basic level) by ear, just with a couple of fingers for the right hand melody and no real usage of the left hand.

However, I am now attempting to make some music using my PC-based home recording studio, and am wanting to put some simple piano chords to a guitar-based song.

I don't know what the guitar chords used are, but all I want to do is just find some nice chords that sound good when played along as a complementary thing to the rest of the tune.

I know what I want in terms of sound and notes (when I play a note along with whatever guitar chord is played, it sounds good and I want that sound), however as soon as I make a chord out of that note, it changes and now sounds wrong.

Basically I think my ignorant question is...how do you take a note that you want the sound of and turn it into the chord for that note, without it changing the entire note sound? (like, say I want the sound of an A note. So I play an A chord, but this sounds wrong.)

Apologies in advance for this confusing question!

well if you're just playing chords to accompany the guitar, you could do basic triads.

a major chord is 4 half steps and then 3 half steps. (starting from the root note)

and a minor is 3 half steps and then four half steps.

So if you're playing an a minor on the guitar, on the piano you would play basically the same notes.

A - C - E

Welcome Grace to the forum.

It depends on what key you are playing.

If the melody tone is A in the key of C:
--then you can try F Chord: F A C
--or you can try A Chord: A C E
--or the Dm chord: D F A

Notice that they all have the 'A' tones in them.

Which one you choose depend on what chord goes before and after that.

Rosa

Hi,

I am not sure if this would help you, but I have a blog where I share my piano tips to people who are keen to learn a 'quick' way to play piano. I call it the "Cheat" way. I do that as a matter of interest, so it's entirely for free. If you are interested, do drop by to check it out. My URL is: www.PianoShortcuts.com

Les

Hey Gracie, welcome.

Here's a little building on ideas given so far...

First, find the key you are in. Once you have the key figured out, then you can use the basic triads (chords with 3 notes).

So, if your key is C (no flats or sharps), then you can try the I IV and V chords. OK, all that means is the first fourth and fifth notes of the scale of C - (C D E F G A B C), so the I is C, the IV is F, and the V is G.

The C chord is C E G (every other note)
The F chord is F A C (every other note)
The G chord is G B D (every other note)

As you play the melody, try each chord and see which sounds right. There is a pattern to the chord progression, explained here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_progression

Now, you are not restricted to these three chords. There are many choices depending on the song. As rosa suggests, you can also use Dm if the melody note is A.

Here is some more info on where chords can go. It looks overwhelming, but it's just a guideline to where you can go from any chord.

http://chordmaps.com/genmap.htm

Here is the home page for the chord map above that will give you chord names instead of I IV etc...
http://chordmaps.com/chartmaps.htm

Hope that helps a little...

EDIT - here's another view of progressions that is a little easier to read.... (this is a good site for a primer on chords - just hit the "secrets" link on top to go to the home page)

http://psrtutorial.com/Resources/R_ChordSecrets/w24_ohduh.html

Baby steps. Play your melody in the C scale. Everyone of those white keys are C scale notes. So..... just play white keys.

Now what chords go with the C scale. As has already been mentioned the C F and G chords will work great with a C scale melody. Why? The C F and G chords contain every one of the C scale notes. No more and no less.
C = C, E & G
F = F, A & C
G = G, B & D

Melody notes feel comfortable with chords that contain some of the same notes as the melody is using - at this specific moment in time - when the melody moves on to new notes that are no longer is the chord you are using you need to find another chord. GREAT NEWS if the old chord was C you only have try the F or G and I guarantee one of them will sound good over the melody you are using now.

Right hand - melody using white keys.
Left hand - use a C F G loop with your melody and I bet it will sound good.

Good luck.

Oh wow, so many responses! Thank you so much, everybody!

I really have absolutely NO music theory experience. I’ve only had about 3 lessons way back when I was about 10 years old (I’m an old biddy of 29 now), and I couldn’t get myself out of playing by ear then either. The teacher assumed from how I played that I had a rudimentary grasp of music theory, but no. I just knew the song I was supposed to be playing. Then I got bored of scales and basic songs that I was meant to play. I wanted to do my own songs!

Anyway, I now wish I’d continued on because maybe then I WOULD be able to play my own songs instead of wasting time trying to figure out what chords go with what.

I’m at work now but when I get home I’ll look closer at what you’ve said and those website links and see if I can understand them. Usually I just ad-lib and play what sounds good to the ear, however this is now getting me in trouble both because my partner who plays guitar can ONLY play by reading chord tabs and has absolutely no idea what I’m talking about or how I work out tunes and melodies and harmonies. I have to try and explain in garbled music theory language how I do it, but I really don’t know. I just hear it. The other problem is now when trying to do chords to fit pre-existing chords, I don’t think any of them sound right because I only know how to harmonise with single notes and singing, which obviously also has to be in single notes.

I think I have a lot to learn!

The other problem is now when trying to do chords to fit pre-existing chords, I don’t think any of them sound right because I only know how to harmonise with single notes and singing, which obviously also has to be in single notes.
------------------------------------------------
You don't need a bunch of chords -- two or three work fine and those two or three harmonize hundreds of songs.

If you limit your melody notes to the white keys you are playing in the key/scale of C. Anything you do on the white keys will be in C.

The chords you need to harmonize your melody in C are C, F and G. Tell your guitar buddy to lay down a C F G chord loop. Now he is doing the left hand harmony for you. All you have to do now is right hand melody. The two of you working together -- you furnishing the melody and he furnishing the harmony just about make a song. Melody, harmony, rhythm and lyrics make a song. You'all work out who will sing and who will set the beat.

If either of you need help in forming chords here is a guitar and piano chord generator:
http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/

Have fun,

Malcolm

Think about playing a single chord for more than one melody note.

If the melody goes A C E, then don't try to find a different chord for each of the three notes. Try just one chord for all three notes. In fact, you could play a chord that has A C and E in it.

If the melody goes A C B D, then don't try to find a different chord for each of the four notes. You could do two chords; one chord for the first two notes, that would have both A and C in it; and then a second chord for the next two notes, that would have both B and D in it.

Do you see what I mean? Think about playing chords for longer chunks of notes, and see how many of those melody notes you can fit into the chord.

Have fun!

Hi Grace,

I’m in a similar position to you - I’m primarily a guitar player and I’ve taken up learning piano mostly so that I can add some keyboard parts to the songs that I write. There's some great advice in the posts above, so here's a simple exercise for you to that will put it into practice. Don't just read this, print it out and sit at a keyboard and actually DO it. :p

Take a song we already know - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. OK, moan, groan, it's not rock-n-roll but if it was good enough for Mozart to use it's certainly good enough for us. It also has the benefit that we all know exactly how it goes, both rhythmically and melodically.


It goes like this:

• C C (twinkle) G G (twinkle) A A (little) G (star)
  
  F F (How I) E E (wonder) D D (what you) C (are).

That version is in the ‘key of C’ and basically makes a jump upwards to the right on the keyboard, goes up once more, and then runs back down again. But how do we find some chords to harmonise with it?

The simplest thing would be to play ‘octaves’ in the left hand. Start by playing two C notes at the same time in the left hand, one with the pinky and one with the thumb (spread the hand WAY out for this). At the same time play the first C in the melody with the right hand. Then keep holding the left hand octave down while the right hand plays the next C note. Work your way through the song doing something similar for all the pairs of notes in the melody. Just play the same note underneath as an octave. Cs then Gs and so on. (In a rock band, that can sometimes be all that the keyboard player is doing, while the guitarists and the singer are getting all the glory…). But usually there’s more to it that that, so let’s move on again.


Quick theory break:


Gmm1 and Majones already told you that if you use the white notes you’re in playing in the key of C and that C (CEG) F (FAC) and G (GBD) are the main chords to get started with. So it’s back to experimenting, and see if we can get them to fit. When you are trying to match chords to a melody there are two basic possibilities. The first is to match the important notes in the melody with a chord that has the same note already in it, and the second possibility is to use a chord with no same notes, and effectively form a new chord from all the combined sounds. The first one is the easiest to get started on, so that’s what we’ll do here. It’s also worth noting that, if you’re writing a new song or arrangement there is no single “right answer” and it’s always a matter if choosing which one that you like the best out of several candidates. And, as Pianojerome pointed out you don’t play a new chord under every melody note. Try and hold each chord until it either starts to sound ’wrong’ or it’s faded away so much you need to play it again.


First, here’s a couple of tricks:

• Trick 1:
  
  Inversions. This sounds a bit scary, but it just means using the same chord notes but in a different left to right order. This will give us 2 big advantages:
  1) it will allow us to keep all 3 chords in the same area under the hand (easier) and
  2) it will also keep them in the same ‘sound area’ (in other words moving from a C to a G chord won’t automatically involve the sound making an obvious jump higher or lower, which you may not want from the point of view of the tune.)
  
  
  Trick 2:
  
  Now here’s one that you probably know from guitar playing - two note chords. With guitar they are usually called ‘power chords’, and they’re formed by dropping the middle note out. This can make them easier to play, but the real reason with guitar is that if you’re using distortion or effects the full chord can sound worse not better. I use a similar idea when I’m roughing out a harmony – cut down chords - mostly because it’s easier to hear for me to hear how it’s fitting with the melody when I’m playing less notes at the same time.

We’ll fill the chords out later but for now try these versions:

C (Left hand pinky on a C, left hand thumb over to the right on the G)
F (Left hand pinky still on the C, left index finger on the F)
G (Left hand ring finger on D, right hand thumb on the G again)

Just practice those a bit until you have them working. They are super easy and the hand doesn’t need to move left or right. All you do is make a slight change of fingers.


OK let’s go:

C C (Twinkle)

This one looks like a no-brainer. Melodies won’t always start on the ‘key’ note or use the most important chord, but we’re in luck here.

Hit the C chord (C and G) in the left hand and hold it. Play the opening two Cs in the right hand. Bingo! If you fancy trying the full C chord add the E with your middle finger. Still fine. OK, onwards.

G G (Twinkle).

Now there’s two obvious choices here – the C chord or the G chord, because they both have a G in them. Try them both a few times. You should be able to hear that the C chord sounds a little more ‘right’ for that song. For another song it could be the G though. Also try the F and see if it sounds ‘wrong’ (it should).

A A (Little)

Well, try them all again, but the most obvious choice will be the F (F A C). If you want to try the full chord, play the C and the F as before and just add the A with your thumb. Right, time to head home.

G (Star) Try the C chord that worked on the way up.

F F (How I) Do I need to tell you???

E E (Wonder) Which chord has an E in it? Yes, it’s the C again.

D D (What you) Hey! At last! A chance to use that one we’ve neglected so far…

C (Are) Home again. One last C. Give yourself a round of applause.


So now you have a chord progression:

C C F C (or in Chord-speak’ I, I, IV, I)
F C G C ( IV, I, V, I)

But wait… there’s more….
Now you can flash it up or flesh it out. Add all those missing notes and maybe try some different ‘inversions’ of the chords. For instance on that opening Twinkle twinkle you could hold the same C chord for both twinkles, or play it both times, or you play a different inversion for the second one. So if you moved you left hand to the right a bit and played E G C you’d still have a C chord but you would have created a bit of upward movement of the sound that might fit well with the upward movement of the melody. Lots to try.

Hope that was helpful. It should be if you DO it and don’t just read it. If you read it you’ll forget it, but if you do it then you’ll remember how it works.

Cheers,

Chris

OK Exercise 2.

Assuming that you did the first one, and that nobody pointed out that I was talking complete rubbish, or got something wrong, then try this one.

Happy Birthday.

Now the words and tune are copyright, believe it or not. So I’m not going to write it all out. But there is a good lesson to be learned from working this one out for yourself.

If you start with your right thumb on the C note and work your way up to the right, you’ll be going great guns on the white notes, and will probably manage to convince yourself that you’re playing the tune in the key of C. Until you get to the last line and can’t seem to find the right note to start “Happy” on. It will turn out to be a B flat (a black note), and the last “you” will be an F – which turns out to be the key you’ve been playing in – F Major, not C. Melodies very often end on the ‘key’ note.

So try again, only this time start on a G and work your way up and down. This time you’ll be in C, which will also be the note you end on.

Once you’ve nailed the melody in the right hand then try adding the chords using exactly the same ones you used for Twinkle, C F and G. This time you can be much more adventurous with deciding when you hit a chord. Instead of every other note, see how long you can go before you use a change. Experiment with how many or how few chords sounds best, and so on. Try more chords when you get to the ‘big finish’ and see if you prefer that or not, and so on.

It’s pretty cool when you finally get it all working. Once you’ve got a simple answer worked out then you can move on to fancier and more interesting harmonies. Good luck.