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How to Play Piano Chords and Chord Shapes

This section contains basic chord shapes for piano / keyboard chords, making these chords easy to play. If you are new to playing piano, then you might have seen symbols like Cm or EbMaj above music in sheet music. These are references to chords. This page will allow you to become familiar to piano chords and piano chord shapes. Ultimately it will show you How to Play Piano Chords and Chord Shapes.

This page is dedicated only to the main set of major, minor, 7th and major 7th chords. In the past few years I have developed a system which is called my Chordmap. This system demonstrates all the major piano chord shapes for all keys, from C, Db, D, Eb all the way to A, Bb and B. You can learn how to play piano chords not listed on this page.
Please click the link below if you wish to view this more extensive piano chords section.

Click the Link Below to view the Chordmap

The ChordMap – Full List of Piano Chords
Instant Chords for over 420 piano / keyboard chords !


Piano Chords Legend

Fig 1 : Reference diagram for how to play piano chords and know the chord shapes

Refer to the diagram above and use the numbers to dictate the notes to be used.
Key number 3 is middle C.

 

Piano Chord 1st Key 2nd Key 3rd Key 4th Key
C maj (Major) 3 7 10
C min (Minor) 3 6 10
C7 3 7 10 13
Cmaj7 3 7 10 14
C# maj (Major) / Db 4 8 11
C# min (Minor) / Db min 4 7 11
C#7 / Db7 4 8 11 14
C#maj7 / Dbmaj7 4 8 11 15
D maj (Major) 5 9 12
D min (Minor) 5 8 12
D7 5 9 12 15
Dmaj7 5 9 12 16
D# maj (Major) / Eb 6 10 13
D# min (Minor) / Eb min 6 9 13
D#7 / Eb7 6 10 13 16
D#maj7 / Ebmaj7 6 10 13 17
E maj (Major) 7 11 14
E min (Minor) 7 10 14
E7 7 11 14 17
Emaj7 7 11 14 18
F maj (Major) 8 12 15
F min (Minor) 8 11 15
F7 8 12 15 18
Fmaj7 8 12 15 19
F# maj (Major) / Gb 9 13 16
F# min (Minor) / Gb min 9 12 16
F#7 / Gb7 9 13 16 19
F#maj7 / Gbmaj7 9 13 16 20
G maj (Major) 5 10 14
G min (Minor) 5 10 13
G7 5 10 14 8
Gmaj7 5 10 14 9
G# maj (Major) / Ab 6 11 15
G# min (Minor) / Ab min 6 11 14
G#7 / Ab7 6 11 15 9
G#maj7 / Abmaj7 6 11 15 10
A maj (Major) 7 12 16
A min (Minor) 7 12 15
A7 7 12 16 10
Amaj7 7 12 16 11
A# maj (Major) / Bb 8 13 17
A# min (Minor) / Bbmin 8 13 16
A#7 / Bb7 8 13 17 11
A#maj7 / Bbmaj7 8 13 17 12
B maj (Major) 9 14 18
B min (Minor) 9 14 17
B7 9 14 18 12
Bmaj7 9 14 18 13

 

Important Note
You can play piano chords using any combination of these keys.
For Example : You can play piano chord of C Major in the following ways

 

Piano Chord 1st Key 2nd Key 3rd Key
C maj 1st Position 3 7 10
C maj 2nd Position 7 10 15
C maj 3rd Position 10 15 19

 

As you can see for position 2, the C note ( key number 3 ) in position 1, is moved to the next octave up ( key number 10 ), and so on.

Having problems Transposing from one key to another?

Click the link below to access an easy way to transpose music and notes 

Use the Easy Transposer Tool