PLAYING THE PIANO BY EAR USING CHORDS

Playing the Piano by Ear

Playing the piano can be fun & very appealing when one gains mastery of it but many people run away from it because of the boring nature of the classical approach to learning how to play the piano where you have to sit down for hours memorizing lots of theory, repeating boring exercises & scales, & at the end of the day you can only played the pieces you have learned & nothing more because you have only been taught to played written music & nothing more. You can't play on the spur of the moment, neither can you freestyle and you are limited to just one style of music.

This limitations can be removed by learning how to play piano through the use of chords & playing piano through the use of chords can be very, very interesting. Chord piano can be played just by anyone who possesses musical ears with little or no musical theoretical background. Chords are made by striking 3 or more keys on the keyboard either at once or successively(arpeggio).There are different kinds of chords.

CHORD PIANO

Chord piano is played using chords.The Piano Keyboard is made up of white & black keys. The white keys are named based on the 7 letters of the alphabets :A,B,C,D,E,F,G. If we press key C, D, E, F, G, A, B, & key C again successively we have successfully played the key of C-major which in terms of solfa notation is doh(d), ray(r), me(m), fah(f), soh(s), lah(l), te(t), doh(d). Now piano chords are made up of 3 or more keys/. For now we will be looking at 3 keys chords within the key of C major.

THREE KEYS CHORDS(TRIADS)

Three keys chords are called triads. Triads can be built on all the keys that make up the C major scale. The triad build on C is made up of keys C,E & G which in terms of solfa is d,m,s.It is called the C major triad or chord or simply as chord C. It can also be referred to as CHORD 1 because it is formed on the first note of the C major scale.

The next key in the scale of C major is D & the triad built on D IS called D minor triad or D minor chord or simply Dm. It can also be referred to simply as chord 11(two) since it formed on D the 2nd note or 2nd-degree of the C major scale.It is made up of the keys D, F & A or in sol-fa terms r,f,l.

The 3rd key in the scale of C major is E. We have the E minor triad or E minor chord built on it which can simply be referred to as chord E or chord 111(three) since it is built on the 3rd degree of the C major scale.This chord is made up E,G & B or in solfa terms m,s,t.

We will summarize the other chords into the table below.

Table1 showing all the triads formed on the scale of C major:

Degree	Key	Chord name 1	Chord name 2	Chord name 3	Technical name	Chord notes	Chord sol-fa
1	C	C major chord	Chord C	Chord I	Tonic Chord	C,E,G	d,m,s
11	D	D minor chord	Chord Dm	Chord II	Supertonic chord	D,F,A	r,f,l
111	E	E minor chord	Chord Em	Chord III	Mediant triad	E,G,B	m,s,t
1V	F	F major chord	Chord F	Chord IV	Subdominant triad	F,A,C	f,l,d
V	G	G major chord	Chord G	Chord V	Dominant triad	G,B,D	s,t,r
VI	A	A minor chord	Chord Am	Chord VI	Submediant triad	A,C,E	l,d,m
VI	B	B diminished chord	Chord Bdim	Chord VII	Leading note triad	B,D,F	t,r,f
1	C	C major chord	Chord C	Chord I	Tonic Chord	C,E,G	d,m,s