Practicing chords?

[daspecimen]

I'm new here and hope I am not going over something recently discussed (i did do a search)...........

What’s the best way to teach/practice chords on the piano? I’ve decided to get back into learning and wanted to add chords into my practice time.

My playing isn’t fantastic, I’m still pretty much a novice but I’m getting there. Basically I did a pre-grade 1 exam and passed that and have passed my grade 2 in Music Theory so I suppose I find it a little easier picking up the theory.

I’ve fished out my grade 1 practical music and am working through that at the minute. But I want to further my knowledge around chords and get better at playing them. I know a bit about the structure of major triads, 4th/6th/7th chords, inversions etc and can do the theory work to understand those better but what’s the best way to get to actually learn about playing them better?

Can any one recommend any exercises/drills that can be done? Naturally I’d start off small/slow and work up but I have no idea what to do to improve this area of my playing.

[stringsthings]

i'd recommend starting out with Major chords ( 1,3,5) .... firing up the metronome and switching between 2 or more chords .....

... then tackling a simple blues progression .... ( for example: C C C C F F C C G F C G ) .... and then you're making music while learning the fingerings ....

cheers, mate

[davilazita]

If you just want to learn chords learn the formulas, add a few in everyday, should be easy as!

[daspecimen]

i'd recommend starting out with Major chords ( 1,3,5) .... firing up the metronome and switching between 2 or more chords .....

... then tackling a simple blues progression .... ( for example: C C C C F F C C G F C G ) .... and then you're making music while learning the fingerings ....

cheers, mate

Thanks, I'll give that a go

[daspecimen]

If you just want to learn chords learn the formulas, add a few in everyday, should be easy as!

When you say add them in, what do you mean? Add them to what? The progression i'm doing? Sorry if that sounds stupid, just trying to be clear on what you're referring to

[davilazita]

I just mean try to learn a new formula every day for example major minor sus2 sus4 and start moving to more complicated ones like add7 add9 etc. Once you know how the chords are constructed you can apply them in any key and have a bit of fun being creative with them.

[Nik Harrison]

Formulas are good if you want to have an academic understanding of chords. If you want a more useful and practical understanding, then it's better to think in terms of shapes and sounds to begin with. I would start with 3 different ways you can play a major chord (in theory, because practically it's differnet on the piano for playing some chords), and then 3 different ways in which you can play a minor chord. Once you've done that, move one to minor7, major7, and dominant7 chord types. Start small and just play 2 chords and get the change between those 2 chords as smooth as possible before moving onto changing between more chords.

[daspecimen]

Formulas are good if you want to have an academic understanding of chords. If you want a more useful and practical understanding, then it's better to think in terms of shapes and sounds to begin with. I would start with 3 different ways you can play a major chord (in theory, because practically it's differnet on the piano for playing some chords), and then 3 different ways in which you can play a minor chord. Once you've done that, move one to minor7, major7, and dominant7 chord types. Start small and just play 2 chords and get the change between those 2 chords as smooth as possible before moving onto changing between more chords.

Thats really good advice. Thanks.

When you say "different ways" to play chords, do you mean different inversions and spacings across the keyboard?

[daspecimen]

davilazita ,

that makes a lot of sense. thanks

[Nik Harrison]

Thats really good advice. Thanks.

When you say "different ways" to play chords, do you mean different inversions and spacings across the keyboard?

You could think in terms of inversions if you like, but that's more "academic", I would think more in terms of shapes if you want to use them and practice them in a more practical sense. Inversions would come into this, but they are by no means the only way to play chords. It depends how far you can reach! Once you know what the formula is to build a chord type, experiment and see what you find!