Using Chords for Accompaniment
The most common use of chords is as an accompaniment to a melody. The melody could be sung, played by another instrument or by the right hand on the piano. If you are playing the melody with your right hand, you can play chords with the left hand.
To become a good piano player, you will need to be comfortable playing chords with either hand. When accompanying yourself, it is often necessary to find chord voicings which are close together. Chords can be arranged in many different ways. As long as the correct notes are contained in the chord, the notes can be arranged in any order.
The order of notes is often called an inversion or a voicing. Inversions will be discussed in detail in a later lesson. The following example shows the chords C, F and G played by the left hand using Inversions which are close together for ease of playing. The arrangement of notes in each chord is shown here.
Notes in Chord
Voicing Used
In this example, the chord voicings from example 4 are used to accompany the famous Country song, Banks of the Ohio.
