Teaching Piano Triads and Seventh Chords with Games

When teaching piano students about chords I find it helpful to create meaningful visuals to represent music concepts in a way that relates to them. What does this image represent?

Keep reading to find out the details!

Chord Visuals

For beginners I introduce the pentascales and chords as "food families" (vanilla, hamburger, oreos, chocolate/killer bs) based on the color of the piano keys with this helpful printable from Layton music. Making relevant connections for kids is so powerful in the learning process. In my studio we start with vanilla ice cream for dessert instead of snowmen!😋

Later as they learn about additional triads and 7ths the snowman visuals in my free chord match game emphasizes the minor and major interval patterns. 

Last month I added a few new visuals to the music bulletin board that my intermediate students created at group lessons while learning about ornaments. I love how it piqued the curiosity of several beginner students who were asking questions about mordents turns and trills when they walked in the door for their lessons. Hopefully the chord jerseys below will have the same effect!

 

Chord Symbol Tutorial

Liberty Park Music has an excellent tutorial and free printable about chord symbols that explains the concept of major, minor, diminished and augmented triads and seventh chords in depth.  It includes musical samples and I love their approach of thinking about the "core triads" first with added intervals on top. I created these visuals to make the concepts even more memorable for reviewing chord types with some of my sport and animal loving students.

Triads and 7ths Chord Games

I believe learning is more memorable and fun with games and use them at every single lesson. I organize and incorporate them as they correlate to the music my students are learning in their method books using my free lesson plans links and piano game resource list.  If I can't find a game to teach a specific concept than I usually create one myself! (Musical Scale Degrees, Chord Match Triads, Melodic Motif Bingo, etc.).

Chord Symbol Addition

This week I paired a free printable gameboard from thisreadingmama.com with chord cards easily created by printing the Liberty Park Music free chord guidesheet  on cardstock and cutting them into game cards.

Players move around the gameboard by first determining the "formula" of half steps to create the chord they draw. For example if they draw a Dominant 7th card the pattern is 4+3+3 so they would move 10 spaces on the board.

Split Second Chords

Another favorite game that I  use regularly in group lessons is Split Second. You can read about the many ways I use it on my previous post.  In our upcoming group after students have sharpened their knowledge of triads and 7ths by playing chord symbol addition, we will play a few quick rounds of split second using a couple of approaches.

Draw chord symbols and have students race to write the pattern (3+3+3).

or

Write the chord pattern on a white board and have students race to draw the correct chord symbols.

What are some of your favorite games for teaching music concepts?

Related Posts

Free Resources for Teaching 7th Chords

Free Chord Match Piano Teaching Game