If you play solo, you are mostly playing the chords with your left hand and the melody with your right. the root note first and when the rest of the notes or the root followed by the whole chord on a higher octave, called stride chords). Other piano techniques include playing chords in two parts (e.g. you play in a band or with a singer) you can choose to play only with one hand or with both, depending on how advanced things you are playing – when playing chords including many notes, using two hands can be advantageous (see Two-hands chords). So which hand do you play chords on piano with? The answer is that it depends.įor musical accompaniment (i.e. It is also important to use the right fingers and this is called fingerings. As you make progress, you will find more ways of altering the outcome. A chord can be played by pressing down all the relevant keys simultaneously or each at a time. When you know which notes that belong to a chord, you can play it in several ways. C7, C9, C11), they are adding notes using intervals from the root of the chords with seventh, ninth and eleventh degrees. The Cm7 adds one note to Cm, the seventh in the C minor scale.

The Cmaj7 chord adds one note to C, the seventh in the C major scale. Building chordsĪ good way to learn chords on the piano is to be familiar with how they are constructed. In addition, chords with six or seven notes also exist.

There are triads (three notes), four-note (sometimes called tetrachords) and five-note chords.

One thing that differ among chords is how many notes that are included. There are lots of different chords that can be organized in different groups and categories. A chord is a group of notes that can be played together and function as the harmony in music.

F-sharp or g-flat major scale