Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Learn all of the chords on the piano | How to play most songs on the piano

How to play all of the chords on the piano and how to play any song on the piano

Hello, Andy here again...

In this video we're going to expand on

what we learned in the last video,

Which was an introduction to piano playing.

Now we'll be learning how to play all of the major and minor chords on the piano.

Once you know how to play all of the chords,

you will be able to play along to most popular songs.

You will be able to play the chords and sing,

You'll be able to play the chords for somebody else to sing

or you'll be able to play the chords for some one else to play along with you.

Now, to do this lesson, you're going to need know where

all of the notes on the keyboard

which is what we learned in the last video.

So if you haven't seen that yet then just

click on the link and take a look at that

before we get going...

OK, so lets get down to it...

The Chords.... how to play all of the chords.

Now, As we learned before,

a simple chord is made up of the first, third and fifth note of the scale,

So if you don't yet know the scale of the chord you are tying to play then

there's a quick way to figure out the notes of any chord.

First of all you play the note,

Now lets say for example that we're going to play a chord of D major.

So, first of all we play a D

Here's our D

Now what you do is you count up 4 notes or 4 semitones

So from the D

1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. gives you F sharp

So the second note of the chord is F sharp

Once you're at the F sharp you count up 3

so thats F sharp... 1.. 2.. 3...

So the 3 notes in the chord of D major are in fact

D.. F sharp and A

And there we have our chord of D Major.

OK?

Now lets try another one...

B major for example. A bit more difficult

So here's the B, the root

we go up 4

1.. 2.. 3.. 4..

and then up 3

1.. 2.. 3..

So, B, D sharp and F sharp

and that's our chord of B Major

Now for the minor chords,

Its the same rule but reversed.

So instead of up 4 and up 3

We go up 3 and up 4

Let me explain

Lets take for instance the chord of G minor

So we have G minor which is a G

Lets do it down here...

G... up 3

1.. 2.. 3..

and up 4

1.. 2.. 3.. 4..

G B flat and D

G minor

Lets say C minor for example

C up 3... and up 4

C, E flat and G

C minor.

So thats is really,

If you want to play any popular song

or accompany someone,

All you need to do is to find the root or bass note of each chord

With a bit of practice you will be able to

pick out the bass notes of the chords by ear

This is a subject for a whole other video really,

Basically the best way to do it...

Or a quick cheating way to do it

is to do a google search for the name of song that you want

with the word chords at the end of it,

and you should be able to find the chords and lyrics for most songs

somewhere for free on the Internet.

Now when you do get your chord sheets or your lyric sheets or whatever

you will probably come accross a few strange chords or symbols,

like sus 4s or dim for diminished , 7 or major 7 even,

I'll go over these in another video but for now

just get by that you can actually just play the chord itself

for example, if you see a C sus4 then you can just play a C

It will sound OK.

Now you might find that after a while

you won't have to count the notes because

you'll have gone learning them bit by bit as you go along.

So you'll find the chords will actually become interiorized a little bit.

Most songs only use a few chords anyway

so you can sit down and learn a song

figure out the chords beforehand

then you know what your going to be expecting

and so you can have the chords prepared ready

Now for a quick reference on this

I have got this chord sheet which is available at the website.

This is the chord sheet here...

It's a list all of the major and all the minor chords...

its a pdf document that you can print out

and keep next to your keyboards or piano as a handy reference.

You can get the chord sheet by going to the pianolearners.com website.

The address should be below....

So thats another quick way...

So basically, If you remember...

a Major chord is 'Up 4 Up 3'

and a minor chord is 'Up 3 Up 4'

If you want to use the cheat sheet, download it from www.pianolearners.com

OK... hope you've enjoyed this and its been of some use to you...

I will be doing another video soon

OK... Bye for now.