If you know a song with simple guitar chords, translating them onto piano should not be difficult. All that matters is understanding how notes connect and interact.
Chords are constructed using similar theoretical principles on both instruments, but there may be differences based on how each instrument is constructed – for instance, guitar players may be limited in how many voicings of one chord can occur simultaneously on its strings.
Basics
Understanding intervals is the key to successfully transposing guitar chords onto piano. Each chord consists of a root note or major/minor third and perfect fifth. When added with tones, diminished and augmented chords become available; although less frequently used than their major/minor cousins, they add extra color and variety to your music.
At first, chords can seem dauntingly complex to figure out, but with practice they should become far easier. All it takes to make chords sound good is looking at their symbol and note names before working them out on piano. For example, C chords consist of just C, E and G notes. By adding another note such as B or D to this triad you get C7 chords – further embellishment will create thicker sounds but that will have to wait for another article! For now just take it easy and work slowly towards perfect sounding chords!
Triads
Triads are one of the easiest chords to learn and a great place to start on your fretboard journey. A triad consists of just three notes stacked atop one another and is one of the most frequently found chords in western music – many popular songs have been constructed around this concept.
As you explore your guitar chord shapes, they all boil down to three-note triads – either major, minor or diminished depending on which intervals are used – while keeping their root and third positions the same.
Change the order of notes within a triad to create different arrangements, known as inversions. For instance, moving up 4 frets by adding an F to its end will create a Dm chord; similarly replacing one note with another provides suspension chords which add new sounds while teaching you about scale degrees’ relationship to one another.
Major and Minor Scales
Basic chords consist of three tones. That is, a C major chord will always contain C, E and G notes; similarly any major scale contains these same notes; there may be slight variations between major and minor scales due to differences in their third tones, which determine their “major-ness” or “minor-ness”.
Notes marked with flat letters (such as F) indicate an interval that has been altered so as to produce natural minor instead of major chords and scales. When learning chords and scales, keeping this fact in mind will help clarify why certain chords might sound differently on guitar than piano despite sharing similar notes – however, the basic rules for creating chords remain the same on both instruments; meaning once you figure out where your fingers should go on one fretboard it should be relatively easy transferring those patterns onto another instrument.
Power Chords
Power chords are an indispensable element of many rock songs and sound especially great with distortion/gain. Although technically not true chords – as they lack a third note (which distinguishes major or minor tones) – power chords sound especially great with distortion/gain effects. They’re simply two notes stacked together.
Find them often used in metal, and listen for heavyweights like Kirk Hammett to employ them for creating that deep bass sound. Easy to play and an excellent way to start creating fast, solid rhythmic passages – they are essential elements for metal musicians!
To create these chords, begin by positioning your index finger at the fifth fret of E string – this serves as the root note. Your ring and pinky fingers should then be placed at second and fourth frets of A and D strings respectively – be mindful to only fret the strings you are fretting; many power chord shapes don’t include open strings!