Lessons › Reading notes

How to read chords and arpeggios

A chord is three or more notes played together. Reading chords one note at a time is slow; reading them by their shape on the staff is fast. The same shapes appear when chords are broken up into melodies.

Triads: the basic chord

The most common chord is a triad: three notes, each a third apart. On the staff, a triad in root position is easy to spot. Its notes are either all on lines or all in spaces, stacked like a snowman. The bottom note is the root, which names the chord: C, E and G together make a C chord.

Because the notes skip every other letter, you only need to read the bottom note. If it is on a line and the other two are on the next two lines up, the chord is root, third and fifth.

Inversions

A triad can be rearranged so a different note is on the bottom. These are inversions. Their shape is less tidy: there is a gap of a fourth somewhere in the stack, where one note is on a line and the next in a space two steps up.

• Root position: root on the bottom. Shape: line-line-line or space-space-space.
• First inversion: third on the bottom. The gap of a fourth is at the top.
• Second inversion: fifth on the bottom. The gap of a fourth is at the bottom.

The quick way to name an inversion is to find the gap: the note just above the gap of a fourth is the root.

Reading a chord quickly

1. Read the bottom note first; it anchors your hand.
2. Look at the shape: evenly stacked, or with a gap?
3. Check for accidentals and the key signature, which change the chord’s quality but not its shape.
4. Place your fingers by shape rather than by naming each note.

Major and minor

A major triad has a bright sound; a minor triad sounds darker. On the staff they look identical in shape. The difference is the middle note: in a minor triad it is a half step lower. In C major, the triads on C, F and G are major and those on D, E and A are minor, without any accidentals. Knowing which chords belong to the key tells you what to expect.

Broken chords and arpeggios

When the notes of a chord are played one after another, it is called a broken chord or an arpeggio. Melodies use them all the time, and so do left-hand accompaniments such as the Alberti bass (bottom, top, middle, top). When you see a run of notes skipping every other line or space, you are looking at a chord. Read it as one shape and you only have to find its first note.

Chords in the bass

In piano music, the left hand often plays a single bass note followed by a chord, or a broken chord. The bass note is usually the root, so it tells you the harmony of the whole beat. Reading the bass first, as the grand staff lesson suggests, gives you the chord before you read the right hand.