It’s the art of re-arranging the notes of a chord in different ways.

For example:

In the key of C, the 1 chord which is C E G is in the root position, it can be inverted in two major ways:

E G C

G C E

To get the first inversion, take the first note and put it behind the last note

C E G becomes E G C – that is how the first inversion is gotten

From E G C, take the first note again and put it behind the last one; then it becomes G C E – that’s the second inversion.

So use this principle to invert every other chords that you know.

To play triads, you would need only your 1, 3 and 5 fingers. Forget about the 2 and 4 fingers for now:

On the left hand:

5              3              1

C             E              G

D             M            S

On the right hand

1              3              5

C             E              G

D             M            S

Keep at it, and get used to it because this is the standard for playing triads.

There are three main types of chords:

Major chords (1 4 5)

Minor chords (2 3 6)

Diminished chords (7)

They are gotten from the 1, 4 and 5 degrees. They have three notes they are also called primary chords. This is the formula we use to derive our major chord

Root + major third + perfect fifth

Using the popular types of intervals we learnt ealier, we can break down this formula
(if you have forgotten about intervals and their interpretation using tones and semtones, click here to refresh your memory, because you would be needing it in interpreting the formulas that i would show you)

1 chord which is C            will give us C E G

4 chord which is F             will give us F A C

5 chord which is G            will give us G B D

Those are the three major chords that we have.

Minor Chords: The members of this chords are the 2, 3 and 6 chord.

The formula for deriving the minor chords is

Root + minor third + perfect fifth

Using this formula

We have:

2 chord which is D            will give us D F A

3 chord which is E             will give us E G B

6 chord which is A            will give us A C E

We have only one chord in this group, and that is the 7 chord.

The formula is

Root + minor third + diminished 5^th

7 chord which is B            will give us B D F

Play all the 12 major chords chromatically

Play all the 12 minor chords chromatically

Play all the 12 diminished chords chromatically

To get a minor chord, reduce the middle note of a major by a semitone

To get a diminished reduce the perfect fifth of a minor by a semitone

This is the correct fingering for the chromatic scale, as it will be easy for your fingers to locomote across the keys of the piano.

C  Db  D  Eb  E  F  Gb  G  Ab  A  Bb  B  C

2    3    1   3    1   2   3    1   3    1   3     1  2

Note that:     The black keys are played with the number 3 finger

                     Two consecutive white keys are played with fingers 1 and 2

                     A white key is played with the finger 1

The way you strike the keys of your piano is very important. To enable easy and uniform movement on the piano, you have to use the correct fingering. Especially when you want to solo over a song or even play chords.

We would take the key of C for an example:

C             D             E              F              G             A             B             C

d             r               m             f                s              l               t              d

The fingering for the left hand is

5              4              3              5              4              3              2              1

d              r              m             f                s              l               t              d

The fingering for the right hand is

1              2              3              1              2              3              4              5

d              r              m             f               s              l                t              d

Key signature is the number of sharps and flats a key has for us to easily identify it. When you look at a musical piece, you would find out that at the very beginning of the piece you would see series or a single sharp(s) or flat(s). They are there for you to determine the key the piece is written on. Look at an example in the picture above.

Those two sharps there tells whoever wants to interprete the piece the key of the song, so how does the circle of fifths and fourths help us to do this:

How do you determine the key signature of a song using thecircle of 4^ths  and 5^ths

The left hand side of the clock are the flats, while the right hand side are the sharps:

Therefore according to the diagram

G = #

D = ##

A = ###

E = ####

B = ##### or bbbbbbb

F# = ###### or bbbbbb

Db = ####### or bbbbb

Ab = bbbb

Eb = bbb

Bb = bb

F = b

C = natural

Forget the fancy stars in the image oo.

The image above is called “Circle of 5ths” when moving in clockwise direction and “Circle of 4ths” when moving anti-clockwisely.

It would help you to remember many key things in music but here I will only tell you how it helps you build your interval knowledge of perfect 5ths and 4ths.

From C to G is a fifth while going backward from G to C on this circle is a fourth interval.

Another instance,from F# to Db is a fifth while backward from Db to F# is a fourth.

It’s the same thing counting two and half tones for 4th interval while counting three and half tones for 5th interval but this clock or circle will help you to remember easily without counting anything.

Just look at it like a multiplication table that you use when you want to solve simple mathematics.

First of all a scale is a sequence of notes played one after the other

So a chromatic scale

C   C#   D   D#   E   F   F#   G   G#   A   A#   B   C

d     de   r    re    m   fa   fe     s   ze     l    le     ti   d      —–      solfa notes of a chromatic scale

Interval is the distance between two notes, they can be defined by tones and semitones

Minor 3^rd (m3) = 3 semitones from the root note

Major 3^rd(M3) = 4 semitones from the root note

Perfect 4^th (P4) = 5 semitones from the root note

Perfect 5^th (P5) = 7 semitones from the root note

Diminished 5^th (flat 5) = 6 semitones from the root note

Augmented 5^th (sharp 5) = 8 semitones from the root note

Octave (P8 or perfect 8^th) = 12 semitones from the root note

Keep these terms, they would be used to interpret a lot of formulas that I would be showing you(Lesson 11: Introduction to Chords) in the future, so its better you write them down in your note.

Have you ever been in a choir rehearsal and the music director will tell the pianist to bring down the key to a lower one( in other words change the key) because it is too high for the singer.

So from the key of A, the pianist could change it to the key of F.

What does this tell us?

It tells us that a song can be sung on 12 different keys.

So as a pianist, you should learn to play on all the keys of the piano.

For a start I recommend that you first learn all you need to learn on a particular key that you choose. Some people might choose C, but don’t choose C; choose something else; especially a key that has a lot of black notes.

I started with C#, and I enjoy playing on C#. After you’ve learnt all you need to learn in this tutorials, then you can start practicing on other keys. Make sure you practice other keys ooo.

Most of us would later be exposed to the art of transposing. Transposing is a feature on your electronic piano keyboard that enables you to play other keys on the key you are very familiar with.

You might be called to play in a church, and lo and behold when you get there, you would be given a piano that doesn’t have the piano feature and the keys would be hard to press. Mehn, you’re in deep water. J.

Let me encourage you by telling you that, you would get better at this as time goes on.

TO find the key of a song, you must have a reference point. This reference point depends on your hearing ability.

This video below illustrates how to find the key of a song on the piano:

 Most songs start with Doh and ends with Doh. Some, especially minors start with lah and end with lah

Keep that in your mind ooo.

 A song like baba, eshey oo baba, eshey oo baba, awa dupe baba; it ends with doh.

So whenever they are singing that song, sing it fast to the end and say the doh out loud so you can hear your self, then find that particular sound you said with your mouth on the piano.

If it happenes that the sound  is on the key of F#, then the key of the song is F#.

What about a song that starts and ends with lah; “awesome God” is an example of such songs.

Awesome God, mighty God, We give you praise, awesome God. You are highly lifted up, awesome God…….and so on and so forth.

The song ends with lah, so whenever they are singing the song in the church, try to sing it fast to the end and say the lah, then find the sound you are singing out on the piano, once you get it, trace it to the doh.

Once you get the doh of the song, that will be the key of the song. If the doh falls to the key of G, then the song is sung in the key of G.

Now I know the question in your mind is:

How do I get the Doh when I know the Lah?

That question will lead us into deriving our major scale

First of all a scale is a sequence of notes played one after the other

This questions brings us to something we call Tones and

Tones and semitones can be likened to what we call Wholenote and half note

So,
Tone = whole-note

  Semitone = Half-note

Tone =  T

Semi-tone = ST

Whole-note = W

Half-note =  H

Tones, semitones, Wholenote and half note are all distances on the piano.

A semitone distance is the distance of one note to the next immediate one e.g C – Db, E-F e.t.c

A tone distance is double the distance of a semitone e.g C – D, D – E e.t.c

So to derive the major scale this is the formula to use:

T              T              ST           T             T              T              ST

Look at this illustration below to get a better understanding

C   C#   D   D#   E   F   F#   G   G#   A   A#   B   C