When I was around 12 years old, I started listening to American Pop, R&B and British Rock as well as J-Pop.

And I wanted to learn how to play those non-classical songs using lead sheets available and realized that I didn't know how to play those chord symbols like Cm7, G9 that were sitting on top of the music staff......!

 

So I bought a Piano Chord Book at the local bookstore and studied piano chords little by little on my own.

Believe it or not, this book is now one of my very important piano books which is sitting in the bookshelf of my studio today!

 

I was not a great sight reader growing up. Overcoming the difficulty of reading was such a pain as I had to learn some harder pieces. But one day I noticed that the knowledge of piano chords was actually helping me reading new pieces.

I was able to link the image of chords on the piano keys and written notes in the music. Imagining the chords allowed me to skip some of the steps and speed up the note reading process!

 

The best way to enforce your reading skill is to sight read as many notes as possible. But it's definitely worth considering to add "Learning Piano Chords" to your practice menu. Because knowing chords can be a very useful tool for note reading on classical or contemporary pieces. If you learn chords deeply, it’ll be a strong skill for piano arrangements.

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