How to Read Chords on Piano Sheet Music Quickly

A chord on piano sheet music is a stack of notes played together. Reading it note by note, from the bottom up, is slow, and with sharps and flats in the stack it becomes slower still. Here is how to read chords on piano sheet music as one picture.

See the shape first

Notes on three neighbouring lines, or three neighbouring spaces, form a triad in root position: the hand plays every other white key. Learn to see that snowman shape at a glance. Other shapes, such as a note on a line with the next two in spaces, are inversions of the same chord.

Find the lowest note and keep the hand

Read only the lowest note, place the thumb or fifth finger there, and let the shape of the hand do the rest. Most chords in a piece move by small steps, so the hand changes shape less than the page suggests.

Know the black keys in the chord

The hard part of a chord is rarely the shape. It is which of its notes are black keys, worked out from the key signature and accidentals. In iCanPiano Style each note in the stack shows it directly, so you see where the hand goes before you play.

• F sharp: right half black. Play the black key to the right of F.
• B flat: left half black. Play the black key to the left of B.
• B natural: no natural sign. A note that is all black or all white is played on a white key.

Practise with chorales and slow pieces

Hymns and chorales are perfect chord-reading practice: four notes at a time, moving slowly. Read one a day, hands together, and chords soon become single pictures.

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