All 12 Major And 12 Minor Piano Chords

In this video we are going to take a quick review of all 12 major and 12 minor piano chords.

Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wba3Vgv7tow&feature=youtu.be

Good morning, this is Duane and today we’re going to take a quick three minute review of all major and minor chords. A lot of people think there’s an infinite number of major and minor chords, but there’s not. There’s only twelve major chords and twelve minor chords, and you really don’t need to play all those on the piano. You can usually get away with playing half a dozen major and half a dozen minor. That’ll see you through, okay?

Now it’s good to learn all of them, but in common usages most people only use half a dozen of them, okay? Let’s quickly review them. A major chord is based on a major scale, which goes like this. Whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step, okay? A C major chord is that, the root third and fifth of the C scale. The F major chord is that, the root third and fifth of the F scale. The G major chord is that, the root third and fifth of the G scale. There’s three major chords that are all white. C, F, and G.

One you know those major chords, then you can make up minor chords simply by lowering the third a half step. That’s C major and that’s C minor. That’s F major and that’s F minor. That’s G major and that’s G minor. Simple, right? Now you’ve already learned six chords, if you didn’t know those already, okay? There’s three that are all white, C, F, and G, and three that have that black third, the C minor chord, F minor, and G minor. Simply by lowering the middle note, the middle key of the chord. Lowering the third a half step. Major, minor, major, minor, major, minor.

There’s three major chords that have a black key in the center, that’s D, E, and A. D, E, A, does that ring a bell? It’s a government agency, isn’t it? DEA, okay? Now remember that DEA, because there’s three chords, three major chords, that are like that. They’re D, E, and A but they’re D flat, E flat, and A flat. They’re like Oreo cookies, they’re black on the outside, white on the inside. D flat, E flat, and A flat. Remember D, E, and A have a black middle key, a black third. D flat, E flat, and A flat are just the opposite, they have a black on the outside, white on the inside.

One major chord’s all black, that’s G flat and to make it minor you just lower that middle key a half step. Then there’s B, that’s a major chord, B minor, and that’s B flat, and that’s B flat minor, okay? Let’s go through the twelve chords real quickly there. C major, twenty four chords actually. Twelve major, twelve minor. 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.

What’s true of course in the right hand is true in the left hand, major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, okay? Once you know those chords then you can have access to all the songs that use those chords and of course there are no other major or minor chords other than what I just covered, okay? As we get more advanced, we add things to that. We add diminished and augmented chords, and we add six and sevenths and ninths and color tones, all kinds of stuff, but it all starts there. Master that if you haven’t. We’ll see you tomorrow with another quick review like that. Bye bye for now.

***For lots more good stuff on piano playing come on over to my website at https://www.playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips – “Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions!”

Here’s a great little book on chords and chord progressions on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Chords-Chord-Progressions-Exciting-ebook/dp/B0076OUGDE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404158669&sr=1-1&keywords=piano+chords+duane+shinn

Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wba3Vgv7tow&feature=youtu.be

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