This article is part of my guide on how to practice piano more effectively.
Recognising a chord at the keyboard and seeing the same structure inside written music are related but slightly different skills. My article Mastering chords for classical pianists develops the first of these. Here, we will look at how to start seeing the dots on the page as a chord rather than merely a collection of separate notes.
Why do we want to do this?
This kind of recognition can support our sight reading and memorising. If we can recognise five notes as one meaningful chord, we have another way to organise what is on the page. The same recognition can provide useful landmarks when we are learning or memorising, and it gradually contributes to our understanding of harmony.
As with the exercises in the earlier article, I suggest keeping full classical scores to one side for a moment. We first want material that makes the relationship between the written notes and the chord name particularly clear.
First steps
There are many simple piano arrangements with both chord names and written notes. The chord name gives us a way to check what we think we are seeing in the notation, which simplifies the process initially. Find simple arrangements, preferably of music you already know well, so that the melody and rhythm do not demand too much attention.
If you don’t have the energy to go searching on Google, you might consider buying something like the Great Family Songbook: (dubbed as a Treasury of Favorite Show Tunes, Sing Alongs, Popular Songs, Jazz & Blues, Children’s Melodies, International Ballads, Folk … Jingles, and More for Piano and Guitar).
Keep it simple
Play through a few examples and pay particular attention to how the chord symbol relates to the notes in the score. This is an exercise, so there is no need to keep to a strict tempo: take time to look from the music to your hands and back again. The melody may sometimes include a note that is not part of the underlying chord, so look at the wider musical context rather than assuming that every written note must fit the notes of the chord.
Don’t forget, find things in lots of different key signatures … don’t just stick with C Major.
Tip: you will almost certainly meet symbols that you do not yet recognise, perhaps dim, maj7 or sus4. For exploratory purposes, replace these with a simple bass note. I have a further article, Do complex chord symbols help classical pianists?, which looks at why this shorthand can still be useful to us.
Next step
To mix things up a little, also spend some time with music where the chords aren’t written. It’s time to work them out for yourself.
Again, keep things simple. Use music with straightforward time signatures and without too many embellishments or awkward rhythms. Some classical pieces, such as Chopin’s Waltz in A minor or Bach’s Prelude in C major, may suit this exercise, although many other pieces contain more information than we need at this stage.
For me, the easiest options are hymn tunes or Christmas carols. They are available in many key signatures, which is useful, and their rhythms are often simpler than those in popular-song arrangements. If this music is unfamiliar, use any simple arrangement that you know well. Old beginner books and methods can also provide plenty of suitable material.
There are two ways I recommend approaching this:
Away from the piano
Try to work out the chords from the notes whilst away from the piano, looking for places where the harmony seems to change. The melody note may be a non-chord tone, so do not assume that every note necessarily belongs to the underlying chord. If there is not enough information to decide, mark the place with a question mark. Later, at the piano, try the most likely alternatives and listen for the one that makes sense in context.
At the piano
As you play, say the chord either aloud or to yourself. If you need to pause and think, then pause and think: we are not trying to sight read at this point. With practice, the connection between the notes, the sound and the chord name should become more familiar.
As this becomes familiar, you will start to notice sets of notes as chords in the pieces you are currently practising. You will not recognise everything at once, but you will have started to add another useful way of reading the page.
Let me know how you get on with this – it really is learning by doing!
Take a look at the video for a worked example using Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
This kind of activity can support reading and sight reading because it helps us see meaningful groups and recurring patterns rather than treating every note as an isolated event.
In my course Understanding Harmony for Pianists, we look at ideas such as how harmony and melody interact, as well as how we can tie these ideas back to pieces we already play.
