All the basic piano chords in one epic tutorial

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EDIT: one I missed out was the small ninth (- m9). After seeing the you can probably work it out quite quickly: it's the -m7 with an added major third.

Several individuals have asked me to make a guide revisiting all the standard piano chords – so here it is! There's a bit of theory, covering how piano chords are built, and how you can voice and invert them on the .

Most chords are developed of thirds, and once you've figured out make significant and minor thirds, and understood a number of other standard intervals, it's pretty to work out all the chords you require, even if you're a relative newbie on the instrument.

As constantly, the secret to truly mastering this things is to hang around sitting at the piano practising the strategies I speak about. Something you might do is dig out a song book that has a vocal line with the chords composed in. Practise checking out the chords, and quickly you won't need the composed piano part:-RRB-.

Here are those timestamp links, by the method (hat tip, Ollie!).

00:00 Intro.
06:00 Standard significant and small.
07:30 Dominant seventh (chords ending -7, e.g. G7, Eb7).
08:30 Minor seventh (chords ending -m7).
09:05 Major seventh (- maj7).
09:45 Sixth (-6 or -m6).
11:50 Ninth (-9 ).
12:29 Significant ninth (- maj9).
13:16 Added ninth (- add9).
14:25 Suspended fourth (- sus or -).
15:48 Lessened and lessened seventh (- dim or – °;- dim7 or
– ° 7). 17:43 Augmented (- aug or -+).

NB, I do not mention this in the however the small ninth (- m9) is the -m7 with an included major 3rd.

All the basic piano chords in one epic tutorial

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43 Comments

  1. This is great. I’ve had a burning desire to play piano for years, so I stumbled onto your channel out of a sort of idle curiosity. Your joy in teaching the subject matter is so palpable that I watched the entire thing despite the fact that I’ve never played. Alas, too late for me….but your tutorials are wonderful!

    1. Thanks Fred – it’s very kind of you to say so! I have some background in teaching (English literature rather than music) and have long thought that a prerequisite for good teaching is to have an intense interest in the subject matter. In fact, being intensely interested in it is in some ways more important than a high level of mastery of the skill in question (there are many, many, many people out there who are much better at playing the piano than I). But education is a whole different subject… thanks again!

  2. i started playing when i was 7, i only played the white keys, because the black ones sounded weird to me

  3. Hey Bill, I have been looking at a bunch of tutorials on basics, and yours is the best I have seen. I have some experience on the piano, but you can never be too good on the fundementals.

    1. Thanks Frank – I’m glad you like them, and I hope they turn out to be useful for you!

  4. FIXED TIMESTAMPS:
    Intro (Basic Music Theory)
    6:01 – Basic Major
    6:38 – Basic Minor
    7:25 – Dominant seventh (chords ending -7, e.g. G7, Eb7)
    8:27 – Minor seventh (chords ending -m7)
    9:05 – Major seventh (-maj7)
    9:50 – Sixth (-6 or -m6)
    11:50 – Ninth (-9) – NB, I don’t mention this in the tutorial but the minor ninth (-m9) is the -m7 with an added major third.
    12:25 – Major ninth (-maj9)
    13:17 – Added ninth (-add9)
    14:27 – Suspended fourth (-sus or -sus4)
    15:54 – Diminished and diminished seventh (-dim or -°; -dim7 or -°7)
    17:44 – Augmented (-aug or -+)
    Outro

    1. i know this seems wild. but i did not post this, i think my account was hacked… but im glad that some good was done, lmfao

  5. I can’t believe how simple and lucid you explained this without overwhelming me with too much detail. Thank you

  6. You taught me everything in 20 minutes instead of 20 years of taking music lessons. Thanks!

  7. I have honestly learnt more from watching half of this video than I have from anything else. Thank you 😊

  8. This is a lot to take in for a beginner — but I like your teaching style which is very clear and precise. I’ll need to take this in small bits and come back after working on it. Thanks!

    1. No problem! Piano has a pretty steep learning curve, but keep plugging away at it and it’ll start to come more naturally!

  9. This is by far the best piano tutorial I’ve ever found on YouTube. Very concise, straight to the point while still explaining the reasoning behind everything, and perfectly informative like it should be. Bravo my friend!

  10. Beautifully explained – I wish someone had explained it so simply a long time ago. If it seems complicated/u just cycle back & re-run the video & it should make sense

  11. I have just strated to learn piano and I understood everything about chords in just an hour practising together with this video. Amazing job. I am very grateful

  12. Best explanation of chords in one place EVER. I’ve watched this more than once. Thank you!!

  13. Wow, this video filled in a lot of missing pieces in my music theory knowledge. Thanks a lot! I want to learn as much as possible to be able to compose something decent in the future. Although I will not study music for my career, it is one of my greatest passions ❤️

  14. BEST explanatino so far and trust me I’ve seen them all trying to get a grip of the piano. Thank you! I’ll be back for more!

  15. I just started playing piano, and oh my is this the most helpful tutorial I’ve came across. Just learning how to form different chords makes it so much easier.

  16. I’ve been playing for a while now. Only memorizing keys I remember for a song. I’ve been putting these types of videos off thinking I’d just get confused, but I’m in literal tears from understanding it all now.

  17. This was great! I actually found the part about voicings super helpful. Makes it less scary to move around the whole piano 👍

    1. Glad it helped — let me know if you have any questions on any of this stuff!

  18. THANK YOU <3 I've always skipped on music theory classes since I was little, so while I got better and better playing pieces on sheet music, my knowledge of chords remains less than elementary and gives me problems when I try to cover songs freestyle. This video helped me a LOT <3

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