Chords for Piano Lessons for Beginners: Part 1 - Getting Started! Learn some simple chords

Hi, _ if you just bought your first keyboard or piano and you don't know where to get started you've come to the right place
I've made this little mini series just for you so you can jumpstart your [Fm] piano playing [E] career
It's gonna have a couple of parts and we're going to gradually build up your skills and vocabulary
And I [Ab] plan to release a video approximately _
Maybe once or twice a month
_ _ Let's get started and we'll need a little bit of terminology
If you look at the piano keyboard, you see it's made out of repeating units
You [Ebm] have two black keys three black keys two three
two three and so forth the white key to the left of any two black [C] keys _ is
Called a C.
So this is a C.
_ [Eb] _ [C] _ This is a C
[Eb] This [C] _ is a C and so forth the notes are named _
Following the C as you would perhaps expect them to be this is a [D] C [E] D [Fm] E
[G] F G and then it wraps [A] around and _ [Gbm] a
goes back to [Em] a
B [C]
and C and it keeps going
C [G] D E F [A] G [G] A B [C] C _ _ _ _ _
_ [G] Okay, so we got the naming under our belt
The first thing I want to teach [E] you in terms of playing is how to play a couple of simple chords
And I'm going to assume that you want to accompany yourself singing [C] on the piano.
That's kind of the popular
Approach to playing the piano.
So maybe you'd want to sound like this _ _ _
_ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _
_ [Am] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Ab] I'm gonna teach you four chords
Which will be C major F major G [C] major and A minor or I just play them out
C [F] major F [G] major
G [Am] major and A minor _ _ if I don't [Ab] say major after [C] a chord name, it's assumed so I'll just maybe call them [F] C [G] F
[Am] G and A minor _ _
_ [E] Let me start by showing you how to play them
Again, you can play them either in the left on the right [C] hand.
We're gonna focus on the right hand for starters
_ _ here's a C major chord _ and
I'm playing three notes.
[Ab] All of the chords have three notes in this video and I'm playing a G
C and an E with my right hand _ _ _
Now notice the [A] fingering.
The fingering means which fingers I use to play this chord.
I'm using my thumb
_ [Ab] My first finger and my fourth finger.
Now, this is largely a matter of [C] taste.
You could use
This fingering as well
Thumb [Ab] third finger and fifth finger.
It's kind of up to you to experiment and see what feels
[C] Natural for you.
_ _ _ _ [F] The next chord is F major
_ so I'm playing an A C and F _ and
I'm using my thumb [A] first finger and fifth [G] finger on the right hand _ _ and
The fingers are just numbered the way you'd expect them.
One, two, three, four five _
for the G major chord
I'm playing a G B and D with my thumb first finger and fourth finger and finally for [Am] A minor _
I'm playing an A C and E with thumb first finger and fourth finger
Again [E] experiment you might find it more convenient to use your thumb third finger and [C] fifth finger to play some of these voicings
_ Now what about your left hand?
So the left hand is going to play the bass note [E] and the bass note is simply going to be the name of the chord
The note that corresponds [C] to the name of the chord.
So for C major chord in the right hand
You're gonna play a C note in the left hand
_ _ for an F
[F] _
You'd _ _ play an F note in the left hand
_ for an A [Am] minor _ _
you'd play an A in the left [G] hand _ and
For a G, G major you'd play a G, the note G in your left hand
It doesn't really matter how you finger these you can just even use [C] one finger if it's more convenient for [F] you so you can
[A] _ [G] [C] Just [F] jump around
[G] [E] But it's more convenient a little bit to put all of your five fingers like this such that your thumb
Rests [C] on the C and then you can press the C with your [F] thumb
The F with your pinky with your fifth finger
[A] The A with your [G] third and G with your fourth finger
[C] So you don't have to jump around your hand hand just rests evenly on one spot
_ _ _ _ So now you have four chords under your belt and you can expand first of all start by experimenting with different combinations
_ So let's see you can start with a C
going to an [F] F _
going to an [Am] A minor
_ _ Going to a [G] G
How _ [C] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ about a different combination?
[Abm] Let's go for [Am] something that starts with an A minor goes to C major then goes to a let's say F major and G major
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ [F] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ _ [Am] A minor
_ _ [C] C major [F] F major _ [G] G major
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ [F] Let's go for a third combination just to see how it sounds.
Let's do an F major to C major
To a G major to an A minor
F _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[Am] _ _ _ _ _ [F] _ major
[C] C major _ [G] G major _ [Am] A minor now _ _ _ _ _ _ a great
Number of popular songs have been written using just these four chords [F] and
Just go [E] online and look for some of your favorite songs and see
_ Which ones were written using C F G and A minor? _ _ _ _
_ now one more thing before we conclude for today [C] and that is
_ _ Basically what [Ab] you can do to add some motion and interest to your playing is once you've hit the chord just
Repeat it at constant intervals
_ So I'm gonna play it and then hopefully that will give you an idea of what I mean
_ And I'll play let's say a C major to an F major to C major to an F major and so [C] forth _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [F] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[F] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
While I'm [Bb] playing by the way, [Abm] I'm holding down my piano pedal so you can't see it with the camera
but _ all of keyboards today come with pedals and pianos come with pedals and
The [C] nice thing about the pedal is that if I don't press the pedal and I press a note and let go the note stops
but if I hold down the pedal and I press the note and I leave it _ it keeps on ringing and
_ the same goes with the chord without a pedal _ and _
with a pedal
So _ _ _ _ _ _ the idea is [A] to hold down the pedal for as long as you're on a particular chord when you switch between chords
Be sure to depress the pedal
_ So the previous chord [C] doesn't keep on ringing when you switch to the new chord.
So I'm keeping my pedal pressed here _ _ _ _
Depressing it [F] and when I move to the F major, you can I [C] depress it and press it again
_ _ depress [F] and press _ and
_ _ [C] _
_ _ [A] so forth so this will give you a nice full sound when playing _ _ _ and
Of course the sort of quintessential song that you probably want to check out for these four chord is imagined by John Lennon
Do go ahead and have a look and in the next lesson
I'm going to show you four different ways interesting ways in which you can make your playing sound more interesting.
[C] So let's just
Push down the chords, but make it sound more mature complex and sophisticated _
That's it.
I hope you've learned something interesting
Welcome to your first lesson for playing the piano.
I hope you'll have many more