As a newbie, I'm still at the LH Chords, RH melody stage. I'm wondering about the mental gymnastics of playing chords.

Should I be looking at the notes of the chords and reaching my fingers for those notes? Or should I be recognizing the pattern of a particular chord and moving my hand to the notes where I know that chord should be played - i.e. using the bass line like a fake book? I've encountered about 10 different chords in my early practice pieces - usually 3 or 4 in each piece. And I can see the chord changes in a general way, in other words recognizing how each chord looks "different" from the others, but not necessarily making a mental register of what the notes are.

The first method doesn't make sense - as I have a hard enough time just sight reading the melody. On the other hand, given all of the inversions, I am not sure how I would ever be able to recognize all of even the common chords (major, minor, seventh, etc.) when I encounter them in a new piece.

Ultimately, I would like to be able to sight read and play from sheet music but the multiplicity of chords makes that seem overwhelming.

If you are in this for the long haul, why not start learning the major cords and all their inversions. Then do the minors etc. In short order you will know them like the back of your hand...

Jag: I wish there was a chart/book of chord aliases look at the Bm7-5...do you know the exact same chord has another name? Dm6? (inversion
so in effect what I'm getting at is most chords you learn your hand will know it under a different name..which in reality cuts the number of hand postions you have to do..

I relate to your question. I asked myself the same thing and when I realized inversions threw so many different scenarios into the mix I started playing from lead sheet music.

Depending on where you want to take your music the decision to go lead sheet is of course up to you.

I've now progressed to where inversions are entering my music. The lead sheet points me to a chord --- I can use it or during the fleshing out process add an inversion if I think that will help or add anything.

Lead sheet was my choice, do what you think best.

Good luck.

Mark,

I understand what you are saying. However, in the range of two octave below and above middle C, there are twelve possible combinations of notes for C Major alone. They aren't hard to play but that is tweleve different patterns of notes I might find on the grand staff, just for that one chord alone. Considering all twelve intervals from C to C, that is 144 possible combinations just for the major chords.

You see why I feel overwhelmed? So what do you suggest? Just learning the notes on the keys perfectly (which I have been working at) and then memorizing just the notes for each chord (i.e. any combination of C E G is C major ).

Consider this:

As you read this brilliant bit of prose, you are somehow deciphering a code composed of over 50 different-looking symbols. Here's a semicolon; did you stop to analyze its shape, look through your mental catalogue of symbols and decide that it's there to separate two related thoughts? Or did you just read right through, unaware of any search algorithm sifting through your mental inventory of symbol clusters (words)?

Of course you did. In fact, it's hard to remember how you learned to read, isn't it? It's so automatic now, it almost seems inborn. But as a conscious analytical task, it would be impossible. The path from painstaking application of memorized phonetics to "automatic" reading was not accomplished through conscious memorization of a larger and larger number of rules and patterns; over time, through practice, your unconscious mind melded all that experience into a "feel" for the written language that no longer requires thought.

I think that it's self-defeating to think in terms of hundreds of patterns to memorize. You didn't learn to read by memorizing random words in the dictionary. Context is your friend. Try instead to learn actual songs. When you do you'll learn a lot more than the few chord forms that you'll actually use; you'll start to develop a feel for how the chords fit together, how the scale the song is written in helps define the chords you are likely to find, and you'll learn it in a more memorable way.

You will aso have learned something about the "macro" structures of music. Once you have learned a song well in C, for example, you should find that it is easier to learn the same song in D, even if none of the chord forms are the same. And once you have learned it in C, D and F, it will be even easier to learn it in A. But why? Certainly not simply because you have learned more chords. From one key to the next, and even one song to the next, you'll have internalized certain strategies about playing in general that make each successive task easier, even if the specific notes are different.

Contrast that with trying to memorize all the same chord forms, but without the song as an organizing principle. Each one is an unrelated and essentially meaningless entity, like memorizing the 20 most important dates in Burmese history without knowing anything else about the subject that might put them in context.

I always suggest that beginners try playing along with records they like. When you play the right chords the little shiver of success you get will help strengthen the mental association between that group of notes and the sound they make, which is the real goal here. And the little wince you make when you play some real clunkers is just as valuable. Over time you'll just "know" what works, and what doesn't, in a much deeper way than you could by memorizing a rule.

By all means learn some chord forms from a book; what notes make up a Maj7th, for example. But make sure to use them, over and over. Don't be afraid; it's just you and the IPod and the IPod doesn't (yet) have a "snicker" function. Remember, the wrong chords are nearly as valuable as the right ones. Timidity can keep you from some of the seemingly improbably note-combinations that could turn out to be "happy accidents" you would use for years to come. I remember discovering an Am9 chord (A bass, G - B- Middle C - E) some decades ago, quite by surprise. Now it's another "word" in my automatic musical vocabulary.

Eventually you'll be finished; you'll have every sound that a piano can produce right under your fingertips without thinking.

:rolleyes:

I'm kidding, of course, but that's really the best part: there's always more to learn. 45 years in I think I can state that with some certainty. It will take a while for the "feel" to build up, but a few years should have you playing some quite respectable music.

Greg Guarino
www.risky-biz.com

Thanks for the wonderful response, Greg. You should write a book. Since I was a professor in my former life, have always been interested in how people learn complex things.

I'm trying to square what you say with my past experience. What you are describing reminds me of how the nuns taught me to read by the phonics method back in first grade. From a small number of sounds (32) all possible words could be made - I thought that was amazing.

However, I know it was more than just sounds. I must have had some some natural ability to deal with context - i.e. "knowing" the words by their basic sounds and the context in which the word was found. By second grade, I could read most adult books aloud with little hesitation, a skill that served me well for the rest of my life.

What would you say are the music "basics" that would be analogous to the consonents and vowels (and their sounds) that formed the basis for contextual reading? Scales? Chord structures?

It seems to me that what gives me the most trouble is the musical notation. I believe I have always had decent relative pitch. As a child messing around with my grandma's piano, I could usually pick out the melody for most songs I knew. But learning music with respect to the two staves seems perplexing, maybe because there is no similar "context" with which I am familiar.

Maybe I'm just over-thinking this and should simply trust Alfreds's in order to learn by the most efficient method.

Given my difficulties with brevity, I may write a book by accident here on this forum.

Me too.

I like foreign languages; not enough to devote real time to study, but I like to try out my meager skills on the occasional trip. I'm doing a little boning up right now; my family is going to Quebec City in a couple of weeks. I find that the words and phrases I can use most naturally are the ones that are connected to a real-life memory. Last year, also in Quebec, one of the hotel staff told me that there was a good bakery "en face de" one of the hotel entrances. I had to have her repeat it, but I guessed that it must mean "opposite", and indeed, that's where it was.

Even though I had never seen or heard that expression before, it's much more "alive" in my mind than most of what I learned in class or from books. I think the whole experience - asking for a bakery, hearing the answer (twice), walking through the hotel wondering if I'd understood correctly, finding the bakery across the street, maybe even tasting the best ciabatta des olives ever - provides multiple mental connections for that expression. That's not as many connections as the millions we have for the common words in our native language, but much more than anything we read in a textbook.
Scales for sure, and not only to learn how to physically play them. You should try to cultivate an "ear" for the notes that are in each scale, and eventually the chords and variations that are contained in that scale. Of course, I have already applied quite a lot of verbiage in support of the idea that learning and playing actual music is the best way to do that. But learn your scales also.

Here's a fun little exercise involving chords and the scales they come from:

Practice playing C, F and G chords with your right hand; try these inversions, clustered around Middle C: G-C-E. A-C-F, B-D-G. Got those? Cycle through them, C Major, F Major, G Major, F Major etc. Now here's the fun part. Try that pattern over a C bass note. The try a D. Then E, F, G and A. Many of those combinations should sound pretty interesting and at least one will be pretty discordant. But you'll have played them, and heard them for yourself, rather than reading about them. You'll probably have played more different chord forms in a few minutes than you ever had before, all from the notes of one scale, and all without learning any new hand formations.

Good luck.

Greg Guarino

Got any good tips for this? I spoke to my teacher about this very subject last week. I'm not wanting to take away from what I am currently working on (lessons & piece) but I'd like to begin looking at productive ways to get these into my "brain"

Hi Ttigg,

I'm BRAND new to the forum (why, I don't know, since I've been playing for 35+ years and have been online since Al Gore invented the Internet), so please pardon any etiquette missteps...

I've always found that little speed drills helped me - whether it was simple triads or complex jazz chords.

So, start low on the keyboard with just your right hand, and play C-E-G, then E-G-C, then G-C-E, then back to the start an octave higher. Go all the way up and all the way back down the keyboard. Say "C major" a few times as you hit each chord. Start slow and increase speed, while remaining accurate. Then, do the same with your left hand.

Do this for 1-3 chords before or after your regular practice each day. I would start with C, F and G major.

As has been stated elsewhere in this forum, time/sleep/rest have a magical way of firmly embedding new skills into your body, so when you come back the next time, it will be magical how much better you are.

Go through all the major chords like this, or focus on C major, C minor (C-Eb-G), C diminished (C-Eb-Gb), and C augmented (C-E-G#) at one time, instead of three different major chords.

Just make yourself a little physical or mental note of which ones you're practicing, and, literally, within a few weeks, you can make a serious dent into most of the chords.

More important, however, is there application, which is why my jazz teacher focused on practicing chord progressions, mostly in the same inversions. That way, I could use them immediately in songs I was learning.

So, from that perspective, another way to learn the chords would be to take a song you're working on, look only at the chord symbols, and cycle through every chord in the song, perhaps in root position, or in whatever position would sound good in the song, or in all inversions of each chord.

That way, you've just learned the chords AND you now have somewhere to use those new skills.

Sorry my first post is so long - I LOVE piano and got on a "roll" (a little old-time humor for y'all) ;-)

Hope something in there helps,

Bill Romer

Originally posted by Bill Romer: You mean there are other chords than C, F and G?

Just kidding... but those are my favorites

Great post, Bill

Rick

P.S. welcome to the ABF!

At the risk of repeating myself (see 4 posts up), I like the idea of trying out chords in a musical way. You like C, F and G? Great. Try your C, F and G triads (try these inversions first G-C-E, A-C-F, B-D-G) over various other bass notes. Here's a good one, play C Major, F Major, G Major, F Major over a C bass note, then A bass, then F, then G. Sounds almost like a song, doesn't it? Try those chords over some other notes, D and E for instance. Try C, D, F, G. Try changing the bass notes with every chord, or every other. Try a different order of triads.

In the process, without having to concentrate on the names of the chords or how to construct them, you will have played Major Chords with the Root, Third and Fifth in the bass, 3 different minor 7ths (A, E and D), 2 Major 9ths (the C triad over the F bass note and the G triad over C) 3 9sus4s (the F triad over G the C triad over D and the G triad over A)and a chord that is most simply described as G/F. Better yet, you'll have heard them, and in various musical contexts. There's even a pretty ugly one, if you hold it. That's worth hearing too.

Learning what happens when you try combinations like the ones above is an important part of learning to make up your own "unwritten" parts. Sometimes it's good to learn the sound and the feel first. You can learn the names afterward.

Try it. Really.

Those are great suggestions, Greg.

It's also fun, while you're doing that, to ask yourself what you would call the chord, and what type of chord it sounds like to you - major, minor, suspended, etc. I like the ambiguity of the Am7 and FM9 (no root), for example.

Good tips.

Bill

Bill,

Thanks so much for the tip(s) I will indeed give those a shot!

Gary. great tip also, I will begin to start incorporating these into my daily practice (Hannon etc)

Actually, all you need to know is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. In the key of C, C=1 Any major chord is 1-3-5, a dominant 7th is 1357. Minor 1, b3,5. Dim 1 b3 b5 etc. Just knowing this would I have to tell you how to form a Dm6, or an Adim7? Of course not.

There's a lot of great advice in this thread so far. One thing I would add regarding sight reading is to scan your pieces for chords before playing. Reading through without the turmoil of playing makes it easier to notice things like inversions and common patterns. After a while you'll instantly recognize common chords and only have to stop and think about the oddballs. Plus your SR will go much smoother if you already know what chords are coming and just need the symbols to prompt you.