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Em Chord on Piano

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E Minor Chord

Playing E minor on the piano is easy. The key note of the chord is E. Play the E key above middle C with your 1st finger (the thumb). Skip the next white key and play the G note with your 3rd finger and the B note with your 5th finger (the pinky).

You're now playing the Em chord in the root position which means that E, the key note, is the lowest note of the chord.

If you'll listen to the chord you'll hear that it sound rather melancholic. That's the sound of all minor chords so next you can try to look for a chord by ear by playing and looking for two more notes with the 3rd and 5th fingers that create that mellow sound of the minor chord.


The intervals which create an E minor chord If you're not sure whether you got it right check out the musical intervals you created. Em chord is built out of a minor third (1 1/2 tones) and a major third (2 tones) on top of it.

The minor third interval defines the chord as an Em chord.


Now let's invert the Em Chord into all possible Chord Inversions (So the key note of the chord will appear in different places of the chord). The possible chord inversions are given in the image.

Chord inversion of an E Minor Chord

So when we'll see the chord symble Em above a bar it means we have to play an Em chord.

Now we have to cover three more chords in order to play the next piano tutorial "Help" by the Beatles.



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