How to play an E major chord
Would you like to know how to play an E major chord on the piano? I’ll show you how in this short piano tip. Use your right hand. Place your thumb on the white key just above the group of two black keys. Then your middle finger goes on the middle key of the group of three black keys, and your little finger on the white key just after this group. This gives us the simplest form of an E major chord, the so-called root position. The piano is laid out in a super simple way: once you have this pattern, you can see these notes everywhere, because they repeat again and again. I can play it here, or here, or here. Or with the left hand – here and here. Further down it sounds a bit muffled, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. But it is still an E major chord in root position – the simplest way to play it.
Diving a little deeper
If I want to dive a little deeper into chords (you can find more information on this topic here), we can also play this E major chord slightly differently. We change it a little: I simply move the lowest note up an octave, to the white key just above the two black keys. Then I get this – the so-called first inversion of an E major chord. Using exactly the same principle again, I get the second inversion of an E major chord. If I do the same once more, I am back at the root position. Once you have these hand shapes under your fingers, you will notice that you can actually play this E major chord all over the keyboard. These are all E major chords. You can continue the same way with the left hand. These are all E major chords – and you notice that the keyboard isn’t so difficult after all.
Step by step
If you look at this basic pattern, you suddenly notice that it works everywhere. With the Zapiano® Method I always teach holistically, and it is also important that you understand what you are doing. If I play this pattern again and name the notes by their real names, I have an E here, a G# here and a B here. So the notes are E, G# and B. Once you know the names of the notes on the keyboard, you can arrange these notes completely freely. You can also double them, just as you like. In that moment, these are all E major chords. I have simply played them in different ways – it is all E major.
Where are the notes?
You simply look: where are the notes E, G# and B? You can play them like this, or like this, or like this. Everything is allowed as long as it sounds good. That is super important. Something else that matters is that you gain a deeper connection to making music through your ear. When you play these notes, try singing, humming or whistling the top note. That way you check it. The advantage: when you play something and hear it at the same time, the feelings automatically come in too. You simply go deeper into making music, and you can practice this in a very basic way. And if I look at this E major chord in a wider context, it can appear on different degrees. If I am in E major, it is the first degree. But at the same time it can also be the fifth degree of A major or the fourth degree of B major. You can see which notes are available to you in E major in the E major scale.
I hope this short tip was helpful for you. It really is super easy.
Would you like to learn more about major chords and see more short piano tips like this? At Zapiano® you will regularly find short videos with tips and exercises for playing the piano. There is something for everyone – just as varied as our courses. And the best part: at Zapiano® you are never on your own. You can ask questions at any time and even upload a video of your playing once a month.