Do pianists look at the chord letter or notes on the stave to tell what chord to play?

Question

I am doing a piano course and my feeling is that they try spoon feed you every step of the way by making things very VERY simple. One example is when learning chords you are taught to recognize the letter of the chord (so for example C or Cm) and not to look at the notes on the stave. They do show you the chord notated on the stave but say you should just read C above to know what chord to play. Shouldnt the course be teaching you how to recognize the chord by looking at the intervals on the stave instead of just the chord letters/symbols on top? Is this just the lazy way to learn to play chords on the piano?

Answer 1

Do pianists look at the chord letter or notes on the stave to tell what chord to play?

Yes.

As a general rule, the more improvisatory the music, the greater the tendency toward chord symbols. So reading early classical, jazz, or popular music will tend toward chord symbols (though early classical is a different system¹ than the one you're currently learning); whereas, common-practice classical music (approx. 1600 - 1900) will rely on exact note-reading.

Shouldn't the course be teaching you how to recognize the chord by looking at the intervals on the stave instead of just the chord letters/symbols on top?

Most, if not all, modern piano methods teach both. A student leaning toward classical music will likely focus more on notation; a jazz/pop student might lean toward chord symbols.

Often the method will also include Roman numeral notation as well (I chords, IV and V7 chords, etc.) as a way of introducing notation, chord names/symbols, and theory simultaneously.

Is this just the lazy way to learn to play chords on the piano?

No. In fact, in some ways it's more demanding, because at more advanced stages it requires the pianist to understand how to orchestrate interesting voicings rather than having them given on the page.

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¹ "Figured bass" was a system used in early music. It's a system of specifying which intervals above a bass note should be played ("realized") by the performer — in effect, a system of chord notation, but see also Did continuo players consider figured bass as "interval symbols" or "chord symbols"?.

Answer 2

It depends on what you're trying to achieve.

If you want to get a quick understanding of a piece, reading the chord symbols + the melody notes can give you a rough impression.

If you want to improvise, you would also look at chord symbols + melody.

If you want to faithfully play a piece as written, you would use the chord symbols (if present) as a contextual hint. The symbol can help understand the notes quicker and even help spot printing errors.

If you don't have chord symbols, a professional musician will still read "chords" by looking at the notes in the staff. It's the same phenomenon that let's you read "words" even if there are only a bunch of letters ;). And by understanding music theory, you can even read entire progressions in one go – similar to how you can read a sentence by not having to read every single word. This makes sight-reading possible and allows you to see the bigger picture of a composition.

In essence, chord symbols are not necessary but help in reading a piece, because they abstract away the details of voicings, voice leading and rhythm.

Answer 3

It's probably much easier for a beginner to look at the chord symbol, and play a triad that's appropriate. It's teaching what notes are appropriate for each chord.

Yes, looking at the cluster of dots and recognising which chord they make, and being able to play it exactly, is still important, but a slower process. Most people just want to be able to play something sooner rather than later and this way is much quicker. Maybe it slows the learning process somewhat, as sight-reading dots isn't an immediate 'I'll play it now', but both are great skills to have.

I swing between the two, sometimes using the exact music, sometimes voicing my own chords from the chord symbol, it deepends which I think more effective for the situation. And sometimes, the two don't align, due to misprints, etc. So at least I get a second check of what should be there!

Answer 4

Ask the course creators what they meant. If something feels too easy, it's certainly a good idea to challenge yourself more. Maybe the course is not suited well for you. Or maybe you're missing a point.

There are several distinct skills:

• ability to sight-read score
• ability to understand what are the chord names of the notes you play
• ability to understand what are the chord functions in the context of other chords
• ability to hear the two above
• ability to read chord symbols and play them on the spot
• ability to select good sounding voicing and inversions
• ability to arrange harmony for several instruments, or for your instrument when other instruments are present: should you play the same chord inversions if a bass is already playing roots of the chords? how to support the melody the best? how to avoid clashing with another chord instrument? etc. etc.

All these are useful skills. If you already feel confident in some of them, work on the other ones.

Answer 5

I am doing a piano course...

First, you really should address these questions to the person running the course, and review the content of the course before you decide to take it!

It all depends on the goal of the course... and whether that is the same as your goal.

If you want to read staff notation, then "yes" you need to learn to read staff, and the course sounds like it isn't oriented toward that goal.

But the course could be oriented to playing from a lead sheet - melody line with jazz chord symbols give above. Chords are not staff notated in a lead sheet.

I have an old "pop" method book John W Shaum, Pop Piano Course which gives examples of how to play chord accompaniment patterns in the left hand on pages separate from the main song tunes, most of which are presented in lead sheet format with just melody and chord symbols above.

Methods like that encourage learning to ad-lib the accompaniment in the left hand. From the perspective of ad-lib you really don't want the chord parts written out. Otherwise you will never learn how to ad-lib.

Answer 6

If they taught you to look only at the chord letters this course was not good.

At the beginning of the course they had to tell you the goals of the lessons.

The goal must be:

a) ability to read the written chords

b) to play a musical interesting harmonization of a melody.

Both abilities imply that you are able to play from chord letters and perform an adequate accompaniment by chord reading.

To achieve this goal you need to progress both approaches! Especially you should be able to analyze a written chord and define its function. Write the chord letters above all your sheet music and try to play the pieces only by the lead sheet with the chords and the melody in your mind. So you will be able to play only by chords.

Just playing block chords from letters as a piano reduction may be a start for a bloody beginner is a simplification but this has certainly little to do with the intention of the composer

Answer 7

Mostly it will depend on genre. Jazz pianists are expected to be able to play from lead sheets (melody and chord symbols only) by sight to accompany other instrumentalists or singers. The chord symbols are representative of the required harmonic changes, which the performer interprets with their own style: one or two handed, with different inversions and different colour tones (eg., 9ths, 11ths, 13ths etc) on top of the chords.

Pop music will generally use chord symbols which are relatively simple to read and play.

Classical music doesn’t use chord symbols and requires good sight reading for complex pieces to be able to work through a piece -- even slowly with errors on the first attempt.

So it sounds like the course is catering to both which is no bad thing.

Answer 8

While the fingering patterns on a piano are quite more general, guitar tablature often is additionally "spiked" with chord symbols. Those chord symbols are not relevant in any regard concerning what notes will be played in what order on what string: all that information is in the tablature numbers. However, they are quite helpful in sorting the left hand operation into fingering patterns and thus, in spite of not actually prescribing any note to be played, make sightreading run smoother.

Now a piano score differs in several respects: for one thing you don't need to cram your hand into patterns like on a guitar fretboard. For another, there isn't the duality between fingering and plucking a note which means that you can "prepare" a note before it is being played and facilitate a harmony ringing on (though the latter is a bit more seminal with a piano when letting fingers rest, but it tends to be more explicitly written into notes than for a guitar).

But still, I'd expect that kind of information to be helpful. I would be very wary, however, of taking the chord symbol over the actually written notes: that seems like a mistake. It may help if you have to accompany someone while sightreading and would not be able to decode the notes fast enough: working with the chord symbols might make it easier to create a simplification on the fly that still works well enough. But it's not the main skill to aim for.

Answer 9

Let‘s jump into the future and review your question from there: then it doesn‘t matter, where you started.

Why?

You x-rayed the piece in parts or all of it, „see“ all the voices, chords, neighbor notes, nuances, progressions, all the errors left in print and so on. You „saw“ its inner construction, mechanics, ideas, intentions, explorations and so on.

It‘s not different from talking. E.g. you no longer ask for the characters (notes) to know the word (chord) to get the meaning of many notes (the music).

From that future perspective it makes no difference any more, as you need both and more.