Let’s say you’re sitting at your piano or keyboard, looking at an unfamiliar piece of sheet music, or maybe a lead sheet you found online, and you come across a piano chord you haven’t seen before.
If you have my free visual piano chord chart, you would have a 98% chance of simply finding a visual representation of the chord, and you would play the highlighted keys to create the chord.
But let’s say, for the sake of this blog post, that you don’t have my guide or, if you do have a chord guide, it’s all the way across the room and you’re just not in the mood to retrieve it.
Is there a way to figure out how to build and play the piano chord from scratch, just by looking at the chord symbol?
The answer is YES!
(Fair warning: this post may get a bit long, so you might want to digest it in bite-size pieces!)
But before I show you how to put the puzzle pieces together, we need to learn/review some basic rules and structures at the piano.
Half Steps, Whole Steps and Scales – The Building Blocks of All Piano Chords
Just to be clear, let’s review the most basic intervals on the piano – the half step and whole step.
A half step is the distance between ANY two keys on the piano – white to black key, black key to white key, or white key to white key (there are no black-to-black half steps on the piano).
A whole step is simply two half steps.
A picture is probably worth 1000 words here…
First, we need to learn how major scales are built, and they are all built with exactly the same structure, which my logical mind finds amazing!
Here’s the structure:
- Start with any note on the piano.
- Play notes up the keyboard in this sequence of intervals:
- Whole step
- Whole step
- Half step
- Whole step
- Whole step
- Whole step
- Half step
For example, a C major scale looks like this:
and an Ab major scale looks like this:
Take a moment to verify that the structure is the same for both scales. This works for any starting note on the piano – in all 12 keys!
The Four Basic Piano Chord Triads
Before we get into more advanced piano chords, alterations, and their notation, we need to know the four basic triads and how to build them with the scales we just created.
The four basic piano chords are major, minor, diminished and augmented.
They are notated like this:
Major: C, CΔ, CMaj, Cmaj
Minor: C-, Cmin, Cm
Diminished: Cdim, Co
Augmented: Caug, C+
and similarly for all the other keys.
Major Chords
Major triads are written with a single note – e.g., C, F, Bb, Eb, F#, etc. – and are built using the root (1st), third and fifth notes of the major scale. So, using the C major and Ab major scales from above, a C major chord – written simply as ‘C’ – is C-E-G, and an Ab major chord – written as ‘Ab’ – is Ab-C-Eb.
Here’s C major:
and Ab major:
You can also think of chords as being built in terms of half and whole steps. Any major chord starts with the root note. The next note up (the third) is always 4 half steps above the root, and the top of the triad (the fifth) is 3 half steps above the third.
It may be easier for you to think of chords in terms of half and whole steps, to save you the extra step of having to think about the major scale first.
Minor Chords
Minor chords start with the root, then add the note 3 half steps above, then the note 4 half steps above that. Or, just lower the third from the major chord one half step.
Here’s C minor, written as Cmin, Cm, or C-:
and Ab minor, written as Abmin, Abm, or Ab-:
Diminished Chords
To create a diminished chord, start with a minor chord and lower the FIFTH a half step as well, creating a chord that starts with the root, adds the note 3 half steps above, then the note 3 half steps above the third.
So, C diminished, written as Cdim or Co is:
and Ab diminished, written as Abdim or Abo is:
Augmented Chords
Finally, to build an augmented chord, start with the major chord and raise the fifth one half step, giving you a chord that starts with the root, then adds the note 4 half steps above that, then the note 4 half steps above the third.
C augmented, written as Caug or C+ is then:
and Ab augmented, written as Abaug or Ab+ is:
7th Chords
When you see a 7 in a chord symbol, it doesn’t always mean the same thing – confusing, right?! Well, not once you know the rules.
First, let’s talk about the case where the root note is followed by just the number 7 – e.g., C7 or Ab7. This is called a dominant 7th chord.
Although it’s not a triad (3 notes), I still think of the dominant 7th chord as one of the fundamental chords, just because it has such a unique sound. To build a dominant 7th chord, start with a major chord, then add the note 3 half steps above the 5th, which also happens to be one whole step below the chord root – but an octave higher. This is called the minor or dominant 7th interval.
So, here’s C7:
and Ab7:
Dominant 7th chords USUALLY resolve to the major chord a fourth (4th major scale tone) above their root. So, G7 resolves to C, C7 resolves to F, Bb7 resolves to Eb, etc.
Now, for minor and augmented chords, you play exactly the same thing when you see a 7.
Here’s Cm7:
and C+7:
HOWEVER, if you see a diminished 7 symbol – like Cdim7 or Co7, you actually need to lower the 7 ANOTHER half step.
So, Abdim7 is:
Diminished 7th chords are often used to move between chords. For example, to move up the piano keyboard in chords, you could play C, C#dim7, Dm, Ebdim7, Em, F, F#dim7, G, Abdim7, Am, Bbdim7, Bdim7, C.
What’s also interesting about diminished 7th chords is that there are really only three groups of notes that cover ALL diminished 7th chords. If you play Cdim7, then C#dim7, then Ddim7, those are all unique, but once you get to Ebdim7, it contains the same notes as Cdim7! And so on… Interesting!
Alright, so we have one more variation for the 7th. I know, it can be a little confusing, but I’ll summarize the 7th rules below.
IF you see a ‘M’ or ‘maj’ or ‘Δ’ just before the 7, then you play the 7 from the major scale – in other words, one half step below the root of the chord.
For example, CM7 is:
and DM7 (changing it up a little!) is:
Guess what? You can even have a MINOR chord with a MAJOR 7th!
WHAT??!!??!!
It’s a pretty cool sounding chord, too, especially if you like Halloween or hang around with a guy in a mask in the basement of an opera hall.
Check out (and play!) this C minor major 7th chord – written as CmM7:
Pretty neat, huh?
Now, here are the basic…
Rules for 7ths
- For dominant 7th, minor 7th, or augmented 7th – e.g., C7, Cm7 or C+7 – play the minor 7th – one half step below the 7th from the major scale – two half steps below the root of the chord.
- For diminished 7th – e.g., Cdim7 – lower the minor 7th another half step – so, 3 half steps below the root of the chord.
- For major 7th – e.g., CM7 or CmM7 – use the 7th from the major scale – one half step below the chord root.
Now take a breath, because that’s 70-80% of what you need to know to build piano chords from scratch!
But we do have more work to do, so let’s move on, shall we?
6 Chords
These chords will look like this:
C6, Ab6, F#6, Bm6, Em6, etc.
And these are easy – just add the 6th n