I'm looking for recommendations on ways to teach chords, chord recognition, and theory.

I was trained classically as a child. Later I learned jazz, popular music, theory, chords, and how to "comp" accompaniments. After that, when I returned to playing classical music I was absolutely shocked at how much easier it was! "Suddenly" I could recognize the chords and chord progressions. So instead of "reading" every individual note, I could see things like "OK, broken E7 chord in the left hand, it's the V of vi so up next will probably be Am, yep, no problem!"

My question is, what's the best way to try and teach this to my intermediate students? Are there good books or workbooks about chords and theory? With two of my adult students I've started teaching chords and how to recognize them. We've gone through songs identifying chords. We've mapped them out and noticed common chord progressions (V7 wants to go to I, V of V, things like that). But I feel clunky teaching this right now, perhaps because it's something I kind of learned by osmosis.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

My recommendation is to make sure that at least some of what you use as teaching material is inside of a musical context. That is, don't have everything textbook-only, but make sure that your students are seeing it in what they play as well.

I start earlier than intermediate and always through whatever pieces they're learning. They do scales and arps anyway so why not point them out as they appear?

I like to start a basic arrangement and build it up. I begin with basic chords and develop them into repeating patterns. Once I have a basic arrangement up and running I add licks and improvisation. Working in easy +1 steps keeps the students interested and progressing quickly.

Here is a lesson I use at the early stages. I use Faber Piano Adventures at the early stages and usually introduce playing lead sheets once the student is playing level 3B. House of the Rising Sun is where I start. I am not that fond of the arrangement in the book.

http://www.box.net/shared/pqb8iytt99


If you go ahead a couple of pages passed "House" in the 3B book 1st inversion chords are introduced.
Most of the RH chord harmony in my arrangement uses 1st inversion chords which is another reason this is a good song to use at this level . Because the student is playing the chords without reading full notation, they stick better than playing chords in the context of the technical execises. Be sure to have the student identify each chord with the appropriate chord symbol.

Spanish Fiesta is a favorite in the level 3B book. Most students really like that one so I get them to apply the R.H. chord rhythm pattern to the House of the Rising sun and create a spanish version of the song.

Here is the audio for the solo in the pdf handout: http://www.box.net/shared/zibkqliz9g

I have been creating backing tracks using Garageband. More fun that a metronome!
http://www.box.net/shared/zdkda37jlj

Once you have a large enough repertoire of arrangements, it becomes easy to teach arranging technics and theory concepts. It is a lot more fun and sticks better than just applying concepts in a technical exercise or writing out a theory exercise.

I teach chords in a variety of ways, I find them extremely usefull in teaching very hard pieces. I usually start out with some really easy pieces, and we use patterns. I start out teaching the chords to Cannon in D. Only I do it in the key of C. So the chords would be C - G - Am - Em - F - C - F - G. I lay this out as a chord chart. 4 slashes for each chord with the chord listed on top. I have a recording of me playing the melody with my own drums. The first thing they have to do is just play only one note per measure, whatever the chord is called, only using there right hand thumb. The next is to play the full chord in right hand, only on the first beat, keeping there thumb on the name of the chord, so they remain in root position. The next is to add the left hand only one note. All of this is done with the recording. I tell them if they can't keep up, to skip chords, but always know where you are on the page. There are times we have to shut off the recording and look at it a little. Then I write little arrows on the sheet music which direction they have to go to get to the next chord. When they go from C to G, they usually want to go up, but it sounds more like the song to go down. So I write down all the arrows as I hear it. The next step is to arpeggiate. Left right right right. So on the c Chord it would be C (left) C, E, then G (right). When they can do that, I explain the numbers of the scale they are using, sometimes known as the diatonic structure. The one chord is C, the 2 chord is Dm and so on. Then they have to transpose it to other keys. For students new to this, you can only get a couple of keys out of them, but the more advanced ones can do quite a lot. This is a great way to get them to understand the notes on the piano as well, so they are not just stuck in the C position. I have some young students at the beginning just do the first step of this to get to know the piano.

I hope this helps.

Mike