The 3 Basic Chords
Mar 19th, 2008 by admin
This may be surprising to some people, but in fact most songs can be played with just 3 chords! The 3 chords are the I, IV and V chords of any key.
For example, in the key of C, these 3 chords are:
I - C,
IV - F, and
V - G.
If we were in the key of A, these 3 chords would then be A, D and E respectively. That is because in the A scale, A is the 1st note (I), D is the 4th note (IV), and E is the 5th (V) note.
Perhaps the above is oversimplified, but I hope you will get used to it, because after all the idea here is to try learning to play the piano the simplest way. 
For those who would like things to be politically correct, the 3 chords we mean here are C major, F major, and G major.
And for those who have never played any chords before, a major chord simply means playing the “doe”, “me”, “so” notes together. Therefore, a C major chord is made up of the C, E and G notes (because C is the “doe”, E the “me” and G the “so” of the C major scale).
Similarly an F chord is made up of F, A and C notes (because F is the “doe”, A the “me” and C the “so” of F major scale).
In the same manner, G chord comprises G, B and D notes (because G is the “doe”, B the “me” and D the “so” of the G major scale).
The pictures below illustrate the C, F and G chords:
Figure 1: C Major chord
Figure 2: F Major chord
Figure 3: G Major chord
I guess this is enough for now.
