Your first piano chords

A chord is several notes sounding at once. The chords you meet first have three notes and are called triads. On the white keys their shape is always the same: play a key, skip one, play the next, skip one, play the next.

The lowest note of that shape is the root: it gives the chord its name. C, E and G make the C chord, because the shape is built on C. A common right-hand suggestion is thumb on the root, middle finger in the middle and little finger on top: fingers 1, 3 and 5, counting from the thumb.

Press the three keys at exactly the same time, with a relaxed wrist. If one note comes out louder or late, play them slowly one by one first, then together again.

These four are not a random pick. They only use white keys, so you can focus on the shape. They all follow the same play-one, skip-one pattern, so a single hand position covers all four. And they all come from the same scale, C major, which is why they sound good one after another, in almost any order.

Three of them are major chords: C, F and G. Am, read “A minor”, is a minor chord: its middle note sits one key lower than it would in A major. Many listeners hear it as darker or softer than the other three, though the music around it matters as much as the chord itself. The guide on major and minor chords looks at that difference closely.

Playing every chord from its root moves the whole hand at each change. The same three notes can also come in another order (C, F and A is still an F chord), and with shapes like that your hand stays around C: compare the two versions below. The guide on changing chords smoothly shows how to find these shapes for any chord.

No need to learn a fixed fingering for these shapes yet: let your fingers settle where they feel comfortable, and keep the hand loose as it moves.

Here is a short original loop built on the shapes around C: C, F, G, Am, one bar each. The right hand plays the chord on beat 1 and holds it, then plays it again on beats 3 and 4. Count “1, 2, 3, 4” out loud as you play.

Start with the right hand alone at a slow tempo. When the changes feel easy, add the left hand: a single note, the root of each chord, held for the whole bar. The bass climbs C, F, G, A, then the loop comes back round to C.

Once it flows, make it yours: play each chord once per bar, break it into single notes, or swap F and G. The four chords come from the same scale, so they keep fitting together.