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Piano Chords are the bread and butter of playing the piano or keyboard. Once you know your chords you will be able to take your playing to a whole new level.

A chord is a combination of notes that are played together to make a certain sound.

To help you easily find all the piano chords use the Chord Finder.

Why Chords?

So why are these chords so important?

Chords are used by most piano players to make their life a whole lot easier. If you want to play a song but you don’t want to have to read the music you can use chords to easily play a song right away.

Chords make it easier to play by ear. If you know the chord progressions in a song then you can easily play that song without having to have any music.

Click here if you want to learn how Chords Can Be Made Easy.

Also take a look at some of the most Basic Chords. They are easy to play and necessary to learn when starting piano.Click here to download a Free 25 page Piano Chord Chart

One of the most fun styles on the piano has got to be the piano blues.

Though it may be a fun styles to play, it can be one of the hardest.

Even though it may be hard it is a style that most love and aspire to learn to play. Most piano players think of playing the blues this as their “Climbing Mount Everest.”

Once someone learns the blues they feel
like they have become an accomplished piano player. But being able to play the blues and “REALLY” playing the blues are two totally different things.

Anyone can learn the blues scale and then start playing the 12 bar blues. But it takes time to become a true blues pianist.

So if you came here wanting to learn the blues overnight then you came to wrong place. But if you are willing to put in the time, and really work hard, then keep reading.

The Blues

The blues is a style of music that strays from standard traditional classical music. It has an origin all its own.

It has its own scales and chords that make it totally different from any other type of music.

When learning the blues you must learn blues theory. If you think you know music theory hold on to your seat because the blues is going take everything you thought you knew about music theory and throw it down the drain.

Practicing blues scales is also important part of learning the blues. Have fast fingers will increase you ability in playing blues.

Blues has its own set of rules that you need to know so you can keep with the style.

Playing the Blues

The thing that sets the blues apart is the left hand. You need to have an independent left hand in order to play the blues. Your right hand is going to have plenty to do, so you need to have a left hand that can hold its own.

Piano blues is great because you have the freedom to improvise. You take the blues progressions in the song and you play to your hearts content.

This is one of the things that makes the blues so great. You get the creative freedom to play what you think sounds good.

Once you start getting good at the blues you can then take your improv to the next level with soloing.

You make up you own bag of tricks, also known as riffs, and steal the stage with your amazing blues solo.

You take everything you know about the blues and get your 30 seconds of fame.

Conclusion

Piano blues is fun and exciting. Learning to play this style of music will make your friends go crazy. They will automatically rank you above all of the classical piano players they know.

Your cool sounding piano playing will steal the show and also open up doors for you to play many other types of music.

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Need You Now is the title track for Lady Antebellum’s second studio release. It was released in January of 2010 and has sold over 2 million copies.

Tutorial

This song is in the key of E and has four sharps. The notes in the key of E are E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, and D#.

Intro

To start this song off you play the simple intro. The intro has two parts. the right hand plays D#, E, A, G#, and then plays D#, E, G#, A.
To make the song sound fuller you
can play an octave in the right hand
for these notes.

While the right hand plays these notes the left hand plays a C# Minor chord for the first part and an A chord over the second set of notes. To add a little more to the left hand you can play the octave of root chord alternating between the two notes. Instead of playing the full C# Minor Chord, you can play two C# notes on eight notes, one high then low. (See video for more info)

Chorus

The chorus starts on an E chord and then moves to a G# Minor chord. Repeat these two chords and the finish the rest of the chorus off with an A chord.

Instrumental

The instrumental starts on the C# Minor chord then moves to the B, E, A and then end on the B. Repeat this set of chords and then go back into the chorus. So once you get here you should be on auto-pilot until the end of the song.

Video Tutorial

Chords

Intro:     C#m     A   Repeat

Verse

A     C#m

A     C#m

A     C#m     A

Chorus

E     G#m

E     G#m     A

Intrumental

C#m     B     E     A     B     Repeat

Outro

C#m     A   Repeat

---

Lyrics

Verse 1
Picture perfect memories scattered all around the floor

Reachin’ for the phone ’cause I can’t fight it anymore
And I wonder if I ever cross your mind

Chorus
It’s a quarter after one,
I’m all alone and I need you now
Said I wouldn’t call but I lost all control and I need you now
And I don’t know how I can do without
I just need you

Verse 2
Another shot of whiskey can’t stop looking at the door
Wishing you’d come sweeping in the way you did before
And I wonder if I ever cross your mind
For me it happens all the time

Chorus

Bridge
Guess I’d rather hurt than feel nothin’ at all



Chorus

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Major chords are the most important chord that you can learn.

The majority of songs that you will learn will consist mostly of these chords. Most contemporary songs are made up of a mixture of Major and Minor Chords. So once you learn how to build both of these chords then you will be able to play most contemporary songs.

Chords in Contemporary Music

These chords are used over and over again in contemporary music. Most every song that you hear on the radio is going to have at least three of these chords in them. Go to my Chord Progressions section to learn about the three main Major Chords that are used in music.

How to build the Chord

Most chords are made up of three notes: the root, major third, and perfect fifth. My intervals section will explain what these are.

To build any chord you need to know your scales (refer to my scales page). A scale tells you what notes are to be played for a certain key. This might not make any sense so check out the scales section for more help.

Once you know all about scales you can easily build any chord. To build the chord you simple find the scale for the chord you want to build.

For example let’s find a G chord.

To find that chord lets find the G Major Scale. Like you learned in the Major scales section you count up by Whole Steps and Half Steps W-W-H-W-W-W-H.

Look at the image to see the G Major Scale

Now to find the G chord. These chords consists of the First Third and Fifth of the scale. The first is always the root note, or the starting note, which in this example is G.

Now count up to the third note. G is 1, A is 2, and B is 3. Now you have the first two notes of the chord G and B.

To find the last note you do the same thing and count up to the fifth note of the scale. In this example it would be D.

So we found that a G chord is made up of the notes G (the root), B (third), and D (fifth).

Finding Chords for all the Keys

The example we used was to find a G major. That was easy right? But what about all the other chords?

It’s the same thing for all the other chords. You find the root then count up the scale to the third and the fifth in that scale.

Lets do one more example to make sure you really know how to build a major chord. Lets find a D Major.

Find the D Major Scale by using W-W-H-W–W–W-H.

Then use the first, third, and fifth in the scale. This tells us the D chord is made up of a D, F#, and A.

Now that you know how to find a Major Chord make sure you take the time to learn all of your chords in all keys. When you can find all these chords in all the keys quickly then you can move on to finding Minor Chords.

Need more help learning chords? Learn almost every chord you’ll ever need with our Piano Chord Encyclopedia.

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The more difficult part of naming piano notes is naming the black keys.

Though it may be harder, if you can name the white keys, then you can easily name the black ones. If you need help naming the white keys check out my explanation on Naming the White Piano Notes To name any of the black keys all you do is find a white key that is directly next to the black key. 

You then determine if it is a sharp or flat. (Check out my lesson on Sharps and Flats) If it is to the right of the white key it will be sharp, if it is to the left then it will be flat.

For example, if you are wanting to find the name of the note labeled in the image, you find the white notes that are around it which are G and A. 

You then name it based on its relation to those white notes. 

So, the black notes relation to the A is to the left which makes it flat so it will be an Ab. It is also to the right of the G which makes it a G#. 

How can a note have more than one name? It all depends on what key you are in. 

If you are in the key of Eb then that note will be called an Ab. If it is in the key of B however, it is called a G#. 

Whichever key you are in determines the name of the note. 

This may seem confusing for you right now but, if you look at my lesson on Key Signatures it will help you. 

Below is an image with all of the names of the white and black notes for reference.

Lesson #4 – Piano Fingering
Back To Lesson #2 – Naming the White Keys
G

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