Check out my book: http://www.billspianopages.com/how-to-really

EDIT: one chord I missed out was the minor ninth (-m9). After watching the tutorial you can probably work it out pretty easily: it’s the -m7 with an added major third.

Several people have asked me to make a tutorial revisiting all the basic piano chords – so here it is! There’s a little bit of theory, covering how piano chords are constructed, and how you can voice and invert them on the keyboard.

Most chords are built of thirds, and once you’ve figured out how to make major and minor thirds, and understood a couple of other basic intervals, it’s pretty easy to work out all the chords you need, even if you’re a relative beginner on the instrument.

As always, the secret to really mastering this stuff is to spend time sitting at the piano practising the techniques I talk about. One thing you could do is dig out a song book that has a vocal line with the chords written in. Practise reading the chords, and soon you won’t need the written piano part 🙂

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1i-cFx7__M&t=6m0s – Basic major and minor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1i-cFx7__M&t=7m30s – Dominant seventh (chords ending -7, e.g. G7, Eb7)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1i-cFx7__M&t=8m30s – Minor seventh (chords ending -m7)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1i-cFx7__M&t=9m05s – Major seventh (-maj7)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1i-cFx7__M&t=9m45s – Sixth (-6 or -m6)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1i-cFx7__M&t=11m50s – Ninth (-9) – NB, I don’t mention this in the tutorial but the minor ninth (-m9) is the -m7 with an added major third.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1i-cFx7__M&t=12m29s – Major ninth (-maj9)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1i-cFx7__M&t=13m16s – Added ninth (-add9)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1i-cFx7__M&t=14m25s – Suspended fourth (-sus or -sus4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1i-cFx7__M&t=15m48s – Diminished and diminished seventh (-dim or -°; -dim7 or -°7)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1i-cFx7__M&t=17m43s -Augmented (-aug or -+)
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There’s more on chords in my book: http://www.billspianopages.com/how-to-really

Learning piano chords and chord progressions can seem pretty daunting, but you can get a long way on the instrument by knowing just a few. In fact, you can play hundreds of songs if you learn just four easy piano chords.

In this tutorial I’m going to assume you’re a beginner and that, while you know the basic notes on the piano keyboard, you know little or nothing about chords, harmony and improvisation. I’ll teach you four chords and a simple progression in the key of C that you can adapt to help you play very many different songs. You can also use this easy tutorial to start learning some bits and pieces of piano improvisation, and as an intro to some of the other piano tutorials on my channel.

The chords I look at are C, F, G and A minor. The first thing I explain is the importance of being able to play these chords in many different voicings and inversions – the piano offers hundreds of different ways of playing simple chords, and it’s important that you really get comfortable with find chord shapes quickly on the keyboard.

From there we take a simple chord progression and begin to play it to time, starting with just single chords and moving on to slightly more complex, but easy piano comps. We also look at ways that you can start improvising on the chords to create more interesting effects, and also mention playing in different keys and learning how to pick out melody at the keyboard.

A really important point that I make several times is that you have to practise this pretty hard – learning piano isn’t easy, and it’s really crucial that you give your brain time to adjust to the complex stuff you’re asking it to do. However, with a few hours or days of practice it shouldn’t take long for you to get pretty reasonable at playing chords on the piano. It’s all about determination and sticking to it!

If you’ve enjoyed this tutorial you might also like my book, How To Really Play The Piano – there’s a link at the top of this description.
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My book: http://www.billspianopages.com/how-to-really

Next tutorial in the series due: Wed 30th Nov 2016 EDIT: I’ve pushed it back into December to make room for the latest Train Your Piano Brain and some Christmas stuff. Look out for Jazz Piano #4 the week before Christmas!

Previous tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZxYMVef6Kc

My Patreon campaign: http://www.patreon.com/billhilton

Full fingerings for major and minor scales: http://www.pianoscales.org/major.html [NB, this page is a great resource, but I’d avoid using their suggested fingerings for pentatonic scales, which I think encourage overuse of the strongest fingers]

This is the third in my series of tutorials on jazz piano for absolute beginners. In this one we think in more detail about how to build and use particular scales, work on a new exercise and look in depth at how you might approach it.
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Info about my book: http://www.billspianopages.com/how-to-really

Next tutorial in the series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2DKnBJO6Lk

Previous tutorial in series: https://youtu.be/ABuewbFpyhg

This is the second tutorial in my series on jazz piano for absolute beginners. In this lesson we build on what we learned in the first tutorial, using the C major pentatonic scale and two notes from the C blues scale to improvise over two, and then three, chords in the left hand.

I also introduce shell chords – incredibly useful for jazz piano – and talk about some of the underlying music theory it’s useful for you to know, especially if you’re relatively new to the piano or just coming back to the instrument.

Finally, I talk about the mental processes involved in jazz piano improvisation (and, in fact, in most forms of improvisation, musical and otherwise), and how skilled pianists and other improvisers have a mental toolkit from which they build their improvisations. This all depends on developing a “flow state”. The best jazz pianists have the biggest and best-practised toolkits and the best flow.

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► Download this Quick Tip lesson sheet & backing track:

Jazz Piano Complete Beginner Lesson – 10 Steps

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LESSON SUMMARY

Are you a complete beginner who would like to learn jazz piano? If you think you need to learn a million scales, arpeggios, and chords to play jazz, then you are wrong! You can start playing jazz right away, even if you have zero piano playing experience. In this jazz piano lesson, you are going to learn the first steps to playing jazz piano, including:

– How to play jazz chords
– The most important progression in jazz
– How to move between chords efficiently
– The most important scale for jazz piano improv
– 3 essential jazz improvisation techniques and exercises

By the end of this lesson, you will have a firm grasp for jazz foundations. You will undertand basic jazz harmony, how jazz chord progressions work, and best of all, how to express yourself freely by improvising jazz piano. Let’s dive in.

Get your FREE 14-Day Trial to PWJ here: https://pianowithjonny.com/

Happy practicing!
Jonny May
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Info about my book: http://www.billspianopages.com/how-to-really

Next tutorial in the series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZxYMVef6Kc

Train Your Piano Brain tutorial #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SMZwAQHBuI

This is the first tutorial in a series on jazz piano for absolute beginners. In it, I take a very gradual look at the skills and theory needed to improvise jazz on the piano, focussing on easy improvisation exercises that develop improv skills and hand independence while at the same time being enjoyable to play.

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