Learning Piano Chords

[Jeanny Pham]

Wow, your father's so cool. I like everyone who likes music and good at music like your father
I can hear music and play them again but i can't play them completely, i wish i could do it anh became a good pianist.

Thanks so much for reading

[Gill the Piano]

You can get piano picture chord books, with, say G major written out on the stave and illustrated with a photograph/diagram of either a hand at the keyboard or a diagram of the keyboard with dots on the appropriate notes.Just type 'picture keyboard chord book' or similar into Google!

[normy]

Hello
My father can play any song he hears on the keyboard using preset chords. He can read music. It's his 60th birthday soon and I'd like to see if there's anything available that specifically teaches piano chords. He's very computer literate so an interactive CD Rom or similar would be good.
Many thanks.

Like your father, I played keyboards from scratch for several years, first with single or two finger left hand chords with rhythms,and read and played the right hand melody. I then learned most of the full left hand chords which are usually shown in keyboard music books and played that way. I then took lessons for a few months to improve my self-taught technique, timing etc.
I then tried to learn to play piano-style with limited success, reading the left hand and the right.
Being dissatisfied with this, and too difficult,I then experimented with playing the right hand melody, but playing a variety of block, broken, and arpeggio chords with the left. There are books which can help with this method, but it can be self-creative. ( It's a good idea to stay with the simpler keys, C, F, G).
As a result, while not a "real pianist", I can now play almost any popular song to an acceptable level, on the piano I recently purchased.
You can improvise chord variations with the left from keyboard music books, guitar books, or "fake books" .
It sound fine to me, and I wish I had discovered this method before. I haven't found any suitable CD's etc, some courses on CD have been disappointing.
As I am new to this forum, I would welcome any comments or info. While it sounds good to me, this method does not seem to be recommended or publicised as a relatively easy, fun way to succeed on the piano.

[Bradley Sowash]

Here's a book that will help with chord construction and what to do with the chords once you can play them:

http://www.scotthouston.com/store/produ ... 253&page=1