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Piano Chord Finder

Every piano chord, seen, heard and named. Pick a root and a type and the chord is drawn on the keyboard, spelled properly, played on a real sampled piano, and shown in every inversion. Or press the keys you are holding and find out what the chord is called. 22 chord types on all 12 roots — 264 chords — with the scales each one belongs to.

264chords — 22 types on every root, every inversion
Name a chord from the keys you press
Played on a real sampled piano

How it works

A real piano Chords are played on the site's sampled grand piano, not a beep. Every key on the keyboard sounds when you click it.
Spelled the way a book spells it D major is D–F♯–A, not D–G♭–A. Notes are spelled by letter from the root, so what you read here is what you would read in a score.
Free, no account No signup, no limits. The chord you are looking at is in the page address, so it can be bookmarked or shared.

See it, hear it, and know what it is called

Pick a chord and it is drawn on the keyboard and played on a piano; press keys and it is named. Both directions, the same keyboard.

Both directions on one keyboard

Most chord tools do one thing: either you pick a name and see the notes, or you pick notes and get a name. This one does both on the same keyboard. In Find mode the chord is lit on the keys with the root in gold, spelled, played, and shown in every inversion. In Identify mode you click the keys you are holding — in any octave — and the chord is named, with the lowest key taken as the bass note so the inversion is named too. Symmetric chords like a diminished seventh show every reading; a shell voicing with the fifth left out is recognised as the chord it implies, not rejected.

264 chords, every inversion

Triads (major, minor, diminished, augmented, sus2, sus4, power), sevenths (maj7, m7, 7, dim7, m7♭5, m(maj7), 7♯5, 7sus4), sixths (6, m6) and extensions (add9, m(add9), 9, maj9, m9) on all twelve roots. Every chord can be shown and heard in root position and each of its inversions.
Played on a real piano

Chords and arpeggios sound on the site's sampled grand — the same sixty samples the virtual piano uses — with velocity and a proper release. Click any single key to hear it. Nothing to install, and nothing loads until you press Play.
Spelled properly

Note names are worked out by letter from the root, the way theory does it: the third is always two letters up, the fifth four. So A♭ major is A♭–C–E♭, D major is D–F♯–A, and an E♭ minor chord has a G♭ in it, not an F♯. Where a name would need a double sharp or flat, the plain enharmonic is used, as any chord book would.
Where the chord lives

For every chord, the keys whose scales contain all of its notes — the chord's own key first, then the others. It is how you find which chords go together, and which scale to improvise with over a chord.
A chord chart, and a shareable address

The chords a learner meets first — major, minor, seventh and major seventh — on every root, each opening in the finder. The chord you are looking at is written into the page address as you change it, so a link or a bookmark opens the finder on that chord.

Three ways in

Pick a chord

Choose a root and a type. The chord appears on the keyboard with the root in gold, spelled out with its intervals, and a Play button plays it on the piano. Switch inversions to hear it voiced differently.
Or press the keys

Switch to Identify, click the keys you are holding down — any octave — and the matching chord names appear, exact matches first. Open one to see it in the finder.
Follow the trail

Every chord lists the scales it belongs to, the other chords on the same root, and any other names for the same notes. Then play it on the virtual piano, or find it in the sheet music library.

Looking for something different?

This page is about chords: what they are made of and what they are called. If you want to play a piece, or work out the chords in a recording, start somewhere else.

You want to play, not look things up

A virtual piano with 400 pieces from the library to play along to, and a MIDI player with real instruments.

Virtual piano MIDI player
You want the chords of a recording

Transcribe the recording to MIDI, then open the MIDI in the player and read the notes off the roll — or press them here.

MP3 to MIDI YouTube to MIDI

How the chords are worked out

Interval arithmetic and letter-wise spelling — the way a theory book does it, not a lookup table.

Intervals and spelling

Each chord type is a list of semitone distances from the root (a major triad is 0, 4, 7; a dominant seventh 0, 4, 7, 10). The pitches come from adding those to the root. The names come from a second rule: each chord tone has a degree — third, fifth, seventh, ninth — and the degree fixes the letter, so the accidental is whatever makes the semitone count right. That is why the finder writes F♯ in D major and G♭ in E♭ minor, and why a diminished seventh above B is spelled A♭ rather than G♯.

Chord types: 22, in four families
Roots: 12
Inversions: Every position, up to the 4th for ninths
Scales checked: Major, natural, harmonic and melodic minor, pentatonics, blues, the modes

Identification

The keys you press are reduced to pitch classes and compared against every chord on every root. A chord matches exactly when its notes are precisely the ones you pressed; it is listed as a shell when it has one note more than you pressed — a C7 without its fifth, say. Exact matches come first, ordered so the chord whose root is your lowest key leads; your lowest key also names the inversion. Symmetric chords (diminished sevenths, augmented triads) list all of their readings, because all of them are correct.

Sound

The site's sampled grand piano: sixty recorded notes from C2 to B6, played through the Web Audio API with velocity and release, the missing notes filled by detuning the nearest sample. Nothing loads until you press Play, and nothing is sent anywhere.

Good to know

The keyboard spans C3 to C5. Identify mode reads pitch classes, so an octave choice never changes the answer — only the bass note matters for the inversion.
Power chords (root and fifth) are listed as a type, though strictly they are not chords; guitarists ask for them.
The chord in view is in the address bar as ?chord=Cmaj7&inv=1; copying the link opens it the same way.

Frequently asked

How do I find a chord on the piano?

Pick the root and the type above:

Choose the root — the note the chord is named after.
Choose the type: major, minor, seventh, and so on. The keys light up with the root in gold.
Press Play to hear it, and switch inversions to hear it voiced differently.

What chord am I playing? Can it identify a chord from the notes?

Yes. Switch to Identify, click the keys you are holding — in any octave — and the chord names appear, exact matches first. Your lowest key is treated as the bass note, so the inversion is named too. If the notes fit more than one chord (a diminished seventh has four names), all of them are listed.

What is a chord inversion?

The same chord with a different note at the bottom. C major is C–E–G in root position; put the C on top and it is E–G–C, the first inversion; put the E on top too and it is G–C–E, the second. The notes are the same, so the chord is the same, but the sound and the way it connects to the next chord change. Every chord here can be shown and heard in each of its inversions.

Why does it write F♯ here and G♭ there?

Because chord notes are spelled by letter from the root: the third is always two letter names up, the fifth four. D major is D–F♯–A because F is two letters above D; E♭ minor is E♭–G♭–B♭ because G is two letters above E. F♯ and G♭ are the same key, but only one of them is the right name in a given chord, and the finder uses that one.

Which chord types are included?

Twenty-two: the triads (major, minor, diminished, augmented, sus2, sus4 and the power chord), the sevenths (major 7, minor 7, dominant 7, diminished 7, half-diminished m7♭5, minor-major 7, 7♯5 and 7sus4), the sixths (6 and m6) and the extended chords (add9, m(add9), 9, maj9 and m9). On twelve roots, that is 264 chords.

What do the intervals and semitones mean?

The intervals name each chord tone by its degree above the root — 3, 5, ♭7, 9 — which is how chord symbols are built. The semitones are the same information as a distance in keys: a major third is four semitones, a perfect fifth seven. Two chords with the same semitone pattern are the same type.

What does "scales it belongs to" mean?

The keys whose scale contains every note of the chord. C major's notes are all in C major, F major and G major (and several minor scales), so the chord turns up in all of those keys. It is a quick way to see which chords go together, and which scale to play over a chord.

Can I hear the chord?

Yes — on the site's sampled grand piano. Play sounds the chord as a block, Arpeggio plays it one note at a time from the bottom, and clicking any single key plays that key. The samples load the first time you press Play.

What do the colours on the keyboard mean?

Gold is the root of the chord; dark blue is every other chord tone. In Identify mode, gold marks the keys you have chosen.

What is a power chord?

A root and a fifth with no third — C and G, written C5. Strictly it is not a chord, since it has neither a major nor a minor third, but it is the basic shape of rock guitar and pianists ask for it, so it is here.

Which piano chords should a beginner learn first?

The major and minor triads on the white-key roots — C, D, E, F, G, A — then the dominant seventh on G and C. That is enough for most songs. The chord chart on this page lists exactly those, on every root, and each opens in the finder so you can see and hear it.

Can I use it on my phone?

Yes. The keyboard fits the screen width; turn the phone sideways for larger keys. Sound needs a tap on Play first, as browsers do not let a page start audio on its own.

How do I find the chords of a song?

If you have a recording, transcribe it to MIDI with the MP3 to MIDI converter, open the MIDI in the player and read the notes off the roll, then press them here in Identify mode. If you have the sheet music, the chord symbols are usually printed above the stave.