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One of the most rewarding aspects of playing the piano is that we can play multiple notes at one time. In other words, the piano is one of only a handful of instruments that allow a musician to play chords! Therefore, we owe it to ourselves to be ever-expanding our chordal competency. In today’s Quick Tip, Jonny May shares The Top Exercise to Practice Piano Chords. Whether you’ve been a piano student for 6 months or six years, you’re likely to discover exciting new types of chords in today’s lesson! You’ll learn:

• Intro to Practicing Piano Chords
• Beginner Piano Chords Practice Exercise
• Intermediate Piano Chords Practice Exercise
• Advanced Piano Chords Practice Exercise

After routinely practicing the chord exercises in today’s lesson, you be able quickly spell piano chords as effortlessly as you spell your own name!

Intro to Practicing Piano Chords

Today’s lesson is for piano students of all playing levels and contains three different practice exercises: (1) beginner piano chords, (2) intermediate piano chords, and (3) advanced piano chords. If you are unsure which level is right for you, be sure to watch Jonny’s tutorial at the top of this page to get a feel for each exercise. Then, choose the exercise that poses a slight-to-moderate challenge. The goal is to steadily expand your chordal mastery in about 5 minutes or less practice per day. While we encourage you to gain a general familiarity with all of the chord types that are included in this lesson, most students will be best-served by focusing specifically on one exercise at a time for several weeks or months. Then, after mastering that level, you can move on to the next one.

If you’re already a PWJ member, then you can download the lesson sheet PDF from the bottom of this page after logging in with your membership. Moreover, our interactive Smart Sheet Music provides members with additional practice tools such as the ability to view an illuminated keyboard demonstration of each exercise at any tempo.

Before we get into the specific exercises for each level, we should zoom out a bit and discuss the different ways in which piano educators generally structure piano chord exercises.

Two Approaches to Practicing Piano Chords

There are countless exercises that piano students use when practicing chords. However, most chord exercises fall into one of two categories:

1. Chords exercises organized by a common key
2. Chords exercises organized by a common root

When students practice chord exercises organized by a common key, they are essentially learning all the chords that come from one particular scale. The benefit of this type of exercise is that all of the chords in the exercise frequently appear together in actual repertoire. This makes such exercises highly applicational. In fact, our Quick Tip on Diatonic Chords – The Complete Guide (Beg/Int) takes this type of approach. However, the limitation of this type of exercise is that no one key contains all the chords and chord types that a student needs to know. Therefore, a student must practice additional exercises to learn additional chords.

Today’s lesson falls into the second category—chord exercises organized by a common root. The benefit of this approach is that it helps students mentally index many different types of chords that can be constructed on a given root. Such exercises are especially important for students who want to learn to play jazz repertoire, which rarely uses diatonic chords with exclusivity. In fact, without practicing common root chord exercises, students are unlikely to ever master chords that occur with less frequency. In essence, common root chord exercises displace the hierarchy of tonality a bit by focusing on all chord types with equal standing. However, the exercises themselves are bit more decontextualized.

Hopefully, your own mental categories about chords are already beginning to take shape. Now, let’s dig into our first chord exercise for today.

Beginner Piano Chords Practice Exercise

The first exercise in today’s lesson is designed to help beginner piano students master essential 3-note piano chords. This beginner exercise covers six unique type of 3-note chords:

The 6 Essential Beginner Chords

1. Major Triads
2. Sus 4 Chords
3. Sus 2 Chords
4. Minor Triads
5. Diminished Triads
6. Augmented Triads

We’ll begin by playing each of the chord qualities above with the note C as the root. You’ll notice that sometimes the difference between these chords is that only one note has to move. Therefore, it’s helpful to pay special attention to which note must move in order to change from one chord type to the next. In the example below, the green arrow shows the moving note or notes.

Identifying the Moving Notes

So far, we’ve played all six essential 3-note chords with C as the root. Next, we want to be able to play these chords from any of the 12 available roots. Therefore, our complete beginner piano chords practice exercise is shown below.

Wow, that was 72 chords in all! Were you able to make to make it through the entire exercise? If not, don’t worry. The purpose of today’s lesson is to help you discover and master these piano chords. If you can’t get through the whole exercise in about 5 minutes, just break it up into smaller pieces. For example, you can get started by just focusing on the first line for now. Then, after a week, continue practicing the first line and add the second line, and so on. Before long, you’ll be playing all 72 chords with ease!

Next, we want to gradually increase the tempo. Remember, speed is the product of familiarity. Therefore, as you develop the habit of practicing this beginner piano chord exercise each day, you’ll be able to recall these chords more quickly. The following table shows suggested target tempos for this exercise over the course of a 12-month period beginning on January 1st:

🔎 Check out our Beginner Piano Foundations Learning Tracks Levels 1–3 for a deep dive on beginner piano chords in all 12 major and 12 minor keys. You’ll also learn corresponding major and minor scales, chord inversions, chord progressions and a tune in each key!

Intermediate Piano Chords Practice Exercise

The second exercise in today’s lesson is designed to help intermediate piano students master essential 4-note piano chords. Specifically, this intermediate exercise covers the five main types of 7th chords:

The 5 Essential Intermediate Chords

1. Major 7th Chords
2. Dominant 7th Chords
3. Minor 7th Chords
4. Half Diminished 7th Chords
5. Diminished 7th Chords

We’ll begin by playing each of the 7th chords above with the note C as the root. In the example below, the green arrow shows which note changes from one chord to the next. As you play this exercise, it’s a good idea to vocalize the name of each chords. For example, you would say “C major seven, C dominant seven, C minor seven, C half-diminished, and C fully diminished.”

Identifying the Moving Notes

So far, we’ve played all five essential 7th chords with C as the root. Next, we want to be able to play these chords from any of the 12 available roots. Therefore, our complete intermediate piano chords practice exercise is shown below.

If you played through the entire exercise above, then you’ve just completed some very significant practice. In fact, you’ve just played The 60 Essential Chords for Jazz Piano. Next, we want to gradually increase the tempo. The following table shows suggested target tempos for this exercise over the course of 12-months:

🔎 Check out our Early Intermediate Piano Foundations – Level 4 Learning Track for a deep dive on 7th chords. In this learning track, you’ll find theory and application courses on each type of 7th chord as well as additional courses on common chord progressions, ear training and tunes.

Advanced Piano Chords Practice Exercise

The third and final exercise in today’s lesson is designed to help advanced piano students master essential jazz piano chords with chord extensions. Specifically, this exercise covers the following five advanced chord voicings:

The 5 Essential Advanced Chords

1. Major 6/9 Chords
2. Dominant 13th Chords
3. Minor 11th Chords
4. Minor 11(♭5) Chords
5. Diminished 7th Chords

(Note, chord extensions on diminished 7th chords are a little bit less common. Therefore, the diminished 7th chords in this section simply feature a nice, open voicing as compared to the closed voicing found the intermediate level.)

Let’s begin by playing each of the chord types above with the note C as the root. In the example below, the green arrows show which note(s) changes from one chord to the next. It’s also a good discipline to vocalize the name of each chord out loud as you play it. For example, as you play the following exercise, say “C six-nine, C dominant thirteen, C minor eleven, C minor eleven flat 5, and C diminished seven.”

Identifying the Moving Notes

So far, we’ve played five advanced chord voicings with C as the root. Next, we want to be able to play these chords from any of the 12 available roots. Therefore, our complete advanced piano chords practice exercise is shown below.

Well, how did it go? Were you able to make to make it through the entire exercise under 5 minutes? If not, don’t worry. The purpose of today’s lesson is to help you discover and master these advanced piano chords. If you can’t get through the whole exercise in about 5 minutes, just break it up into smaller pieces. For example, you can get started by just focusing on the first line for now. Then, next week, continue practicing the first line and add the second line, and so on. Before long, you’ll be playing all four lines with ease!

Next, we want to gradually increase the tempo. The following table shows suggested target tempos for this exercise over the course of 12-months:

🔎 Check out our Mid Intermediate Piano Foundations – Level 5 Learning Track for a deep dive on how to play jazz piano chords with colorful chord extensions and alterations. In this learning track, you’ll practice and apply professional jazz piano voicings on common jazz progressions and lead sheets.

Conclusion

Congratulations, you’ve completed today’s lesson on The Top Exercise to Practice Piano Chords. As a result, you’re well on your way to expanding your familiarity and proficiency in playing a variety of essential piano chords!

If you enjoyed today’s lesson, then you’re also likely to enjoy the following PWJ Resources:

Thanks for learning with us today! We’ll see you next time.

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