How to Play All 24 Major and Minor Chords on Piano
One of the first skills my worship piano students learn is how to play all 12 major chords at the piano, as well as how to form a minor chord. These skills are not complicated but will take a bit of practice. However, knowing all of the major and minor chords will allow you to play nearly any song at the piano.
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Forming Major Chords
First, we are going to learn all of the major chords. Our first chord is C major, which is played C-E-G. For worship piano, we typically play the chords with the right hand, using fingers 1-3-5 (thumb, middle, and little fingers).
C (C major) chord:
To find the next major chord, we start with the C chord and move each note up (to the right) one key. Our resulting notes are Db-F-Ab, which is the Db (“D flat”) major chord. It is named Db because the root note (in this case, the lowest note) is Db.
Db (D flat major) chord:
Continuing this pattern, we can form the remainder of the 12 major chords:
D (D major) chord:
Eb (E flat major) chord:
E (E major) chord:
F (F major) chord:
F#/Gb (F sharp major/G flat major) chord:
G (G major) chord:
Ab (A flat major) chord:
A (A major) chord:
Bb (B flat major) chord:
B (B major) chord:
Forming Minor Chords
To form ANY minor chord (Cm, for example), we simply take the corresponding major chord and move the middle note down (to the left) one key. The resulting notes are C-Eb-G, which is the Cm (“C minor”) chord.
These are the 12 minor chords:
Cm (C minor) chord:
C#m/Dbm (C sharp minor/D flat minor) chord:
Dm (D minor) chord:
Ebm (E flat minor) chord:
Em (E minor) chord:
Fm (F minor) chord:
F#m (F sharp minor) chord:
Gm (G minor) chord:
G#m/Abm (G sharp minor/A flat minor) chord:
Am (A minor) chord:
Bbm (B flat minor) chord:
Bm (B minor) chord:
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