"Free
Piano Sheet Music Downloads"
This web page contains several links to download your favourite
piano sheet music standards
and a piano lesson tutorial on how to play them.
Each piece of sheet music contains the melody and chords
symbols. For those pianists who do not know how to read
chord symbols I shall attempt in the next few paragraphs
to explain how to start reading and playing chord symbols.
Anyone wanting to learn to read chord symbols should first
be able to read music notation. To launch into playing chord
charts without any prior musicial knowledge probably won't
work. But, for those that can read music here's a quick
tutorial on how to read basic chord symbols.
Tutorial: How to Read Chord Symbols
There are 2 main types of chords. Major
and Minor. One sounds darker than the other
one (minor of course) and gives a chord its halloween sound.
Each of these 2 chords is made up of 3 notes spaced using
tertian harmony. That means that the interval between each
of the notes in the chords is a third.
To voice a major chord; play the root of the chord, then
a major third above the root and a perfect 5th above the
root.
To voice a minor chord; play the root of the
chord, then a minor third above the root and a perfect 5th
above the root.
Now, things get a little bit trickier. To
make chords sound thicker and to provide a more beautiful
and larger selection of musical colors, musicians decided
to add extensions to chords. These extensions are added
to the origianal triad chords using intervals of three and
the extension used must be referred to in the chord symbol.
For example; if you want to add a seventh
to a chord you must add a 7 to the chord symbol.
There are 2 kinds of sevenths. A major seventh
and a minor seventh. Each one must be notated by a separate
notation. A major seventh is notated with a 7 and a little
triangle beside it. Sometimes you will see it notated like
this; maj7, but I prefer the triangle and will use it for
this tutorial. A minor seventh is notated with a 7 by itself..
You will notice in the above example that
the C7 chord has a Bb in it. This is what we call a dominant
7th chord. It is made up of a major triad with a minor seventh
on top. This chord is used widely in blues progressions
as well as to create tension in popular music that needs
to be resolved to a more pleasing chord or a chord that
doesn't need to be resolved.
In addition to placing 7ths above major triads
you can also place 7ths above minor triads such as in the
following example.
The first chord in the above example is a
C minor major seventh chord. This chord is used infrequently
but still needs to be mentioned. The second chord however
is a C minor seventh chord and is used often.
Another chord that you will see often is a
minor 7 flat 5 chord. That means a minor 7th chord with
a flatted 5th. You will often see this chord followed by
a 7b9 chord which we'll discuss in a minute. Here's 2 ways
of notating a minor 7 flat 5 chord.
A C minor 7 flat 5 chord is sometimes referred
to as a C half diminished chord. This is because a full
diminished chord would have an A on top instead of a Bb
making the distance between all of the notes is a minor
third. A full diminished 7th chord would be notated like
this.
That pretty much takes care of all seventh
chords. Now, you can add extension in thirds on top of the
seventh chords. The available extensions are the 9th, 11th
and 13th. Of course if you added another third on top of
the 13th it would bring you back to the root of the chord.
The 9th can be played as is or it can be flatted
or sharped depending on the sound you want but each is notated
like this.
Notice the fist chord which is pronouned C
major ninth. Very often you will see this kind of notation
which implies a natural seventh even though the seventh
is not in the chord symbol. For the next 2 dominant chords
the seventh is written in the symbol as well as whether
the ninth is flatted or sharped. I mentioned before that
the C7b9 chord is often preceded by a
C-7b5 chord.
Now if you want to add 11ths to a chord you
would have to add the number 11 to the symbol and signify
whether it is a natual 11th or a sharp 11. Keep in mind
the sharp 11ths are used with major 7th and dominath 7ths
while a natural 11th is usually reserved for minor 7th chords.
Please note that with the above chords a natural
9th is implied and can be added to your chord voicing.
To add 13ths to a chord you must also notate
whether the 13th is flatted, natual or sharped. 13th are
usually only used with major or dominant chords. If you
wish to add the sharp 11 to the chord you must add it to
the chord symbol as in the following example.
If you did not wish to add the #11 to the
chord then leave it out of the chord symbol and it will
not be played.
That concludes our tutorial on chord symbols.
Using the above tutorial you should be able
to go through any song in lead sheet formate and decide
which notes are available to you depending on the chord
symbol. Enjoy!
For more information on how to play chord
symbols, signup for your first free
online piano lesson!
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