Knowing how to play the most essential chords by memory is important, but what is the best way to practice them?

A chord progression is a group of chords which are played in a specific order. These are like little fragments of a song; basically the harmonic structure, without a defined melody.

Why is it so important to always practice chord progressions?

Unless your goal is to become a classical pianist or to play specific established melodies, chord progressions are fundamental. They are necessary to know for harmonic training and/or for accompaniment. The more you practice these, the easier it will be for you to improvise and find chords all over the keyboard in different positions. Your hands will start to get used to forming the chords, almost automatically, and your eyes will be able to visualize the chords rather quickly.

There are many ways of playing chords on the keyboard when accompanying a song or when we are simply just practicing or improvising. The most basic thing that we need to learn is all of the chords in their first position. Afterwards, we will need to know all of the inversions of the chords. This isn’t too hard if you are able to memorize the notes which each chord contains. At the beginning, this may feel a bit tedious, but with frequent practice you will be able to visualize the chords all over the keyboard without even having to think about which notes make up each chord.

I would like to recommend our very innovative system – Adictum Piano & Synths- to you, which is a training program based on chord progressions and rhythmic training. There is also a ebook of chord positions and inversions included in this method which i will help you practice the chord progressions. This method actually even costs less than one single piano class and I am sure that it will transform you into a pretty proficient keyboardist.

I would like to show you a series of chord progressions that will help you greatly with learning to improvise harmonically. Try to play these progressions in different inversions each time you practice.

Chord Progression in A:

| A | C#m | F#m | E | D | A | E | E7 :||

Chord Progression in D:

| D | Bm | F#m | G | Em | A | A7 | D |

Chord Progression in C

| C | Em | Am | Dm | F | Dm | G7 | C |

Chord Progression in G

| G | Em | C | Am | D | Bm | Em | Am | D | G |