Free Piano Sheet Music

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The Entertainer - Scott Joplin
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Moonlight Sonata - Beethoven
Fur Elise - Beethoven
Minute Waltz - Chopin

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Tutorial: How to Read Chord Charts

Anyone wanting to learn how to read chord charts should first be able to read music notation. To launch into playing chord charts without any prior musical knowledge probably won't work. But, for those that can read music here's a quick tutorial on how to read basic 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 original 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 pronounced 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 natural 11th or a sharp 11. Keep in mind the sharp 11ths are used with major 7th and dominant 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, natural 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 format and decide which notes are available to you depending on the chord symbol. Enjoy!

For more information on how to play chord charts, signup for your first piano lesson today!

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