How can I learn chord piano?

Learning to play chord piano does take time and practice. Depending on your background experiences in playing the piano and other innate abilities, some of the following steps will be easier than others. Some people are happy to stop at any particular level and enjoy what they can do at that point.

The idea is to have fun learning to play. Don't stress too much if you want to play for others, professionally or socially, because you will get there if you stick with it.

• You'll start by learning the basic 36 chords that is, 12 major chords, 12 minor chords and 12 7^th chords in both right hand and left hand. Don't worry, you're not learning 36 individual chords. Once you learn the 12 major chords, a simple modification will give you a minor chord or a 7th chord.
  
• You'll first learn chords in root position, which is the basic, or home, position.
  
• You'll learn to play a chord in your left hand as you play the melody in your right hand. You can read the right hand melody on a lead sheet or play the melody by ear.
  
• As you practice chords in both hands and in positions other than root position (these other positions are called inversions), you'll start adding one or more chord tones (the notes in a chord) to the melody in your right hand.
  
• You'll learn new, more sophisticated chords starting with diminished, augmented and minor 7th. Eventually, you may decide to learn extensions of these chords - major 7th chords, diminished 7th chords, 9th chords, 11th and 13th chords.
  
• As you advance, you'll add embellishments to your songs in your right hand, and some different styles of rhythm in your left hand, such as Latin, blues and boogie, rock, jazz, or new age.