Minor Piano Chords: Learn ’em All Right Now!
Minor Piano Chords: Learn ’em All Right Now!
Good morning, this is Duane and there’s no need to wonder about what minor chords are or what how they’re formed or anything like that when you can learn in just a very few minutes.
People sometimes go through their whole life times and aren’t sure about certain minor chords. There’s no need to do that because it’s really so easy. Yesterday we learned all the 12 major chords and I hope you watched that video. We learned all 12 major chords in just a few minutes because it’s so easy to learn.
Minor chords are just as easy but they’re based on major chords so let’s review the major chords. We said that there’s 12 major chords because there’s 12 different notes you can build a chord on, those 12. If we go up there that’s a repetition of that same not, see an octave lower, so we can build 12 major chords and the 12 major chords are that but how do we remember those?
We group them in groups of threes, didn’t we? Three chords, three major chords were all white, the C chord, the F chord and the G chord and then there was three major chords that had a black third. Every chord is made out of a root, a third and a fifth; every triad every triad chord.
There are five note chords and four note chords and six note chords but we’re not talking about those we’re talking about three note chords triads. There’s three major chords that have a black third. D, E and A. The three white ones are at C, F and G, the three with the black in the center are D, E and A.
Now there’s three that are like Oreo cookies, they’re black on the outside white on the inside and they’re D flat, E flat and A flat. Remember D, E and A; those are the three chords that had a black third, the other, the next ones are the same alphabetical notes D, E and A but D flat, E flat and A flat, that’s how we associate those and remember what they are.
Then there was three that were left over, one was all black, G flat, nothing could be easier than that and then two others B, which was white black black and B flat which is black white white. Remember, white black black, black white white, white, black, black, black, white, white.
We learned those 12 major chords and it’s pretty easy to do that in a short period of time. Now to form minor chords all you do is you lower third of the major chord. Where’s the third; is it here? No, is it there? No, it’s obviously there because one, two, three it’s the third note of the C scale.
I lower the third a half step, a half step is always the closest possible note, there’s nothing but dust between there and there, right, no keys. C minor would be like that. F minor, therefore, would be what? I’d lower the third A to A flat. What would G minor be? I’d lower the B to B flat.
We’ve learned three of them already. C minor, F minor and G minor. Then the next three the major chords were D, E and A so all we do is lower that middle third a half step and so there’s three minor chords that are all white now, just like there was three major chords that are all white. D, E and A.
Many, many famous songs are written in those keys, by the way. [PLAYING PIANO] You’ve heard that old tune and you’ve heard this. [PLAYING PIANO] You’ve heard this probably [PLAYING PIANO] Many, many beautiful songs written, made out of minor chords so it pays to learn them well.
So far we’ve said that those three major chords C, F and G were formed minor just by lowering it a third. We had three minor chords with a black key in the middle, C minor, F minor and G minor. Then we had three minor chords that are all white; D minor, E minor and A minor.
That brings us to D flat, E flat and A flat. How do we make that minor? We lower the third a half step from F to the closest possible note now notice there’s no black key to the left of that so we have to play what looks like E but we’ve got to call it F flat. If we wrote it down on paper it would have to be F with a flat in front of it.
That’s D flat minor. What’s E flat minor? Just lower the third a half step from G to G flat, all black. What’s A flat minor? We lower the third from C to what?Looks like B but we got to call it what? C flat if we wrote it out. If we don’t write it out I guess it doesn’t matter but if you did it would have to be that otherwise it would confuse musicians and that’s a form that they use.
Then that leaves just three, the G flat chord which was all black, G flat major, we lower B to what looks like A but what would we call it if we had to write it out? We’d have to call it B double flat because it’s already flatted, see, the third’s already flatted so we’d have to write two flats in front of B. Couldn’t write A, that would be confusing to people.
That leaves, just leaves two chords, B major the one that was white; white black, black, we just lowered the middle key which is D sharp to D natural, so that’s B minor and B flat major, we lower the third from D to D flat. That’s it, there’s 12 major chords so there’s 12 minor chords. Let me play the 12 major chords in order and I’ll make them into minor; I’m tripping over my tongue here.
C major, C minor, F major, F minor, G major, G minor, D major, D minor, E major, E minor, A major, A minor. D flat major, D flat minor, E flat major, E flat minor, A flat major, A flat minor, G flat major, G flat minor, B major, B minor, B flat major, B flat minor.
Be sure and do that with both hands so that you get some experience, okay, and so on, all right. Then remember too, that any chord can be broken up or turned upside down so that’s C minor chord but it could be played like that, couldn’t it? [PLAYING PIANO]
That’s F minor, G minor, any chord can be broken up, every, any chord can be turned upside down just like if I take you and stand you on your head you don’t become a different person you just become you upside down. Any chord can be inverted; turned upside down, any chord can be broken up in any order.
That’s an easy way to learn the 12 minor chords just like we learned the 12 major chords and you don’t like I said, you don’t have to wonder about them forever just get them down in your memory drill on them until you know them and get them down cold.
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