Chords on the Piano / Keyboard

The modern piano, or electronic keyboard is a popular musical instrument available in many households today.

Piano/keyboard players, when playing alone, usually play the melody on the right hand, and the accompaniment on the left hand.

When playing in a band, the role is slightly different, usually playing a combination of split chords with both hands, and riffs in between the silent spaces.

The left hand usually plays chords, in their various inversions, in a way such that chord progressions become natural, and smooth, by finding common keys, and doing minimum changes. When playing bass notes, keyboardists/pianists usually alternate between a root and a fifth, or nothing, if the band includes a bass player.

Sometimes the keyboardist/pianist plays arpeggios, using the notes from a chord, and other times they move along the notes of a scale.

The DG Piano Chords Android application facilitates the learning of chords on the piano/keyboard, by displaying all the notes and intervals in a chord, on any possible inversion.

To produce a chord, you must play the notes of the chord.

For example, say you want to produce the notes for a Gm9 chord.

The Gm9 chord is based on the following notes: G, Bb, D, F, A.

Their interval relationships are displayed (by tapping on the keyboard) as shown in the following figure:

G (Root), Bb (minor 3rd), D (perfect 5th), F(minor 7th), A (major 9th).

This chord position has its theoretical value, so that you may understand the intervals; but in practice, it is hard to play because all the notes are spread over a little more than one octave.

This is where inversions come handy.

You may want to explore the same chord in first inversion, where the 3rd becomes the lowest note in the set:

This inversion is a bit more comfortable, since all the notes now fall within one octave.

But you may explore it further, and find that, perhaps, the second inversion (with the 5th as the lowest note) is even more compact:

You may decide to go with this inversion.

And if you are playing in a band, you may drop the Root (because the bass player will play it, anyway), or drop the 9th (because it often is in the melody line).

Alternatively, you may decide to split the chord between your two hands and play the notes as far away as possible.

As we have seen, this application will help you understand the intervals behind the chord formulas, and will help you produce fine music with your piano/keyboard.

We recommend you learn by memory the basic major, minor, and seventh chords, including their inversions. The rest comes with practice as you need them.

Additionally, you may like to explore some chord progressions.