Piano chords
Piano chords for every major and minor chord, drawn on the keyboard. Pick one to see its notes, hear it played, and learn the fingering and inversions.
Know the notes but not the name? The chord identifier names any chord from the keys you press.
How piano chords are built
Every chord on this page is a triad: three notes, the root, the 3rd and the 5th. Take every other letter from the root: C–E–G, D–F–A, G–B–D. Those letters give the chord's notes; whether each one is a white key or a sharp or flat depends on the chord. That is why some chords sit on white keys only and others need black keys.
Major and minor chords differ only in the middle note. From the root, a major chord counts four half steps to the 3rd and three more to the 5th; a minor chord counts three, then four. So the quickest way to turn C major (C–E–G) into C minor is to move one finger: E down to E♭. The outer two notes stay where they are.
Your right hand plays a root-position triad with fingers 1, 3 and 5, thumb on the root. The left hand uses 5, 3 and 1, little finger on the root. Each chord page gives both, for the inversions too.
Learn the shapes, not 24 separate chords
The hand feels a chord by which keys are black and which are white. Many chords share a shape, so once your hand knows one, it knows the others in its group: C, F and G major feel the same under the fingers, and so do D, E and A major. Grouped by the colors of their keys, root first:
Major chords
Minor chords
What each chord page shows
Every chord here links to a page of its own. Each one has the chord on a keyboard and the staff, a play button to hear it as a chord or one note at a time, and step-by-step instructions for finding it. It also covers right- and left-hand fingering, root position and both inversions, the smoothest moves to nearby chords, the keys the chord belongs to, guitar shapes, and a chart to save or print.
To print every chord on one sheet, use the piano chord chart. To put chords together, the chord progressions page plays common progressions in any key.
Questions
How many piano chords are there?
Twelve major and twelve minor chords, one of each on every key of the octave. This page has all 24. Seventh, suspended and other chords are built by adding a note to these or moving one.
What is the difference between a major and a minor chord?
The middle note. A major chord stacks four half steps from the root to the 3rd, then three to the 5th; a minor chord stacks three, then four. Lower the middle note of any major chord by one key and it becomes minor.
Which piano chords should I learn first?
The ones on white keys only: C major, F major, G major, D minor, E minor and A minor. No black key is needed, and they are six of the seven chords in the key of C major (the seventh is B diminished): C, F and G are its I, IV and V, and A minor, D minor and E minor its vi, ii and iii.
What do the colors on the keyboards mean?
Each of the twelve notes has its own color, the same on every page of the site: the keys on a keyboard, the notes on the staff and the note names all match. A colored key is a key to press.
What is a chord inversion?
The same notes with a different one at the bottom. C major in root position is C–E–G; 1st inversion moves C to the top, E–G–C; 2nd inversion starts on G, G–C–E. Each chord page shows all three with their fingering.