MUSICARTA CHORD FINDER PAGE

On this Musicarta Chord Finder page, you can find out how Musicarta can help you find and play chords on your piano/keyboard. Every modern keyboard player should be able to find and play chords as easily as a guitarist, and be as capable of playing an accompaniment or supporting a melody with the right inversions.

You will get advice on what you need to know and what to do first. But please go right ahead and click around to see what’s in store before you link through to the various modules and get to work!

The Keyboard Chord Generator

The Musicarta Keyboard Chord Generator is a two-page visual chord dictionary which groups the 24 major and minor triads according to how they look, in terms of the black and white keys used.

Chord Progressions - I, IV and V in Three Places

• Chord Progressions (1) outlines the “Why?” of I, IV, V (“One, Four, Five”) and introduces chords I and IV (C and F) with a familiar catchy keyboard riff.

• Chord Progressions (2) deals with chords I and V (C and G) in the same way, with another keyboard riff you’re sure to recognise from many famous pop/rock songs.

  Chord Progressions (3) puts the I-IV and I-V pairs together in an easy Afro jazz riff.

• Chord Progressions (4) tackles the trickier IV-V chord and shows you how to slide up the inversions ladder to the beat of that pop Latin classic, Richie Valens’ ‘La Bamba’.

• Chord Progressions (5) consolidates what you know, showing how to use I, IV and V chords to support any melody note or short riff.

Here's a short video demo of the 'Big Three' played on MidiPiano, Musicarta's recommended virtual keyboard. You're sure to recognise them!

Click through to the Musicarta MidiPiano page here to find out how this simple free application can halve the time it takes to get to grips with chords at the keyboard.

• Chord Progressions (6) introduces the ‘relative minor’ chord “vi” ("Six”) – A minor in the key of C, E minor in key G. Another huge piece of the jigsaw falls into place! The series goes on to include all the KEY CHORDS you need to know to become a proficient modern keyboard player.

The Chord Progressions series also offers an easy introduction to the powerful Roman numeral system (RNS) of naming chords, which every serious popular music student should know.

Seventh Chords

Seventh chords are not easy, but you can learn them if you're methodical. Musicarta's Seventh Chords page offers a drill which will set you on the right track.

Here's a sample of what you'll be doing:

Not pretty, but practical! Click through to the Seventh Chords page and make a start on those seventh chords right away.

The Seventh Chords page has MIDI support. If you don't already know about it, click through to the Musicarta MidiPiano page here to find out how this simple free application can help you learn.

Inversions

In popular music, the keyboard player often plays the melody note at the top of a three-note right hand chord (triad). These chords are more likely to be inversions then the basic easy-to-recognize root position chord - the other inversions are nicer on the ear.

So you need to be able to make inversions from the more familiar root position chord, from a chord symbol, and not on a 'wait a minute...' basis, but RIGHT NOW!

Here's a demonstration video of a simple Musicarta inversions drill which is guaranteed to get you there.

The Musicarta Inversions series has MIDI support. If you don't already know about MIDI and Musicarta's recommended MidiPiano virtual keyboard, click through to the Musicarta MidiPiano page here to find out how this simple free application can help you learn. (The hands are even colour-coded!)

Click through to the first module in the Musicarta Inversions mini-series and discover the most efficient way to work towards lightning-fast triad mastery.

Broken Chords

Time spent practising broken chords is never wasted. Traditional piano lessons usually cover broken chord patterns but only as an exam requirement, and without really exploring how close broken chord pattern are to 'real music'.

Here's the inversions practice pattern from the video above played as a broken chord pattern, with a short example of how easily a broken chord pattern can become 'real music'.

That's a pretty hectic 'example'! Click through to the first Musicarta Broken Chords page for a much gentler introduction and some basic broken chord practice patterns to get started with.

The Roman Numeral System

Because the Roman numeral system designates ‘the chords in all keys’, it is central to the business of transposing (changing the key of a piece of music to raise or lower its pitch). You will find Musicarta’s description of the Roman numeral system of naming chords in Part One of the Musicarta Canon Project ‘Transposing’ mini-series

To help familiarise you with the Roman numeral system (RNS), the Musicarta Chord Progressions series is written using both RNS and conventional chord symbols. Link through for a look at the series here.

Transposing

The familiar and well-loved Canon chord sequence offers an ideal opportunity for learning to transpose, and Musicarta’s transposing material focuses on the Canon chord sequence. The Roman numeral system of naming chords, also, is central to learning to transpose, and is covered in the Musicarta Canon Project Transposing Mini-series also.

Click on the Transposing tab on the navbar, left, for a brief overview of transposing, or click through to the Canon Transposing Mini-series here.

The Musicarta Chord Finder page is part of Musicarta.com, your online piano teacher. Visit the Musicarta home page for more chord finder related free online piano lessons.

The Pyramids Variations is Musicarta’s flagship series of free piano lessons online. It explains basic music theory and builds up to an impressive chord-based performance in eight lessons. Click through to the Pyramids Variations home page to get started.

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