Learn the theory
About PianoIPUV
A resource for learning piano chords: see them on the keyboard, hear them, and understand how they are built. No sign-up, no cost.
Where it comes from
PianoIPUV started for the musicians of the United Pentecostal Church of Venezuela, who needed a clear chord reference for accompaniment. Over time it stopped being useful only to them, and today it serves anyone learning in Spanish or English.
The underlying idea has not changed: music theory is explained badly far too often. A chord is not a shape to memorise, it is a relationship between notes that can be understood — and once understood, built from anywhere on the keyboard.
How the site works
Chords here are not stored images: they are computed. Each chord type is defined by its intervals in semitones, and from that definition the site derives the notes, the name, the keyboard position, the suggested fingering and the sound.
That has a practical consequence: any combination of root and type works, including ones no site would bother to draw. And the tables in this guide — the chords of each key, the steps of each chord — come from the same source, so they cannot contradict what the keyboard shows.
What you will find
- The studio: any chord on a real keyboard, with its sound, fingering and inversions.
- A page per root note, with all its variations.
- The finder, to identify a chord from the notes that make it up.
- This guide: from the notes on the keyboard to substitutions, by way of building chords and progressions.
Where to start
If you are starting out, the natural order is the notes on the keyboard, then how chords are built, and from there progressions, where theory turns into music.
If you already play and want to sound better, go straight to voicings and chord substitutions.
And if what you want is practice, the exercises are ordered from easiest to hardest.