Playing the chord of A (using a triad)
Now to play our first chord, we place the thumb of our right hand on the A. We then place our middle finger on the C# (black note) and our little finger on the E (white note) – as shown in our figure below.
Playing the chord of A.
Make sure that when you play the chord that you play all three notes at exactly the same time, creating one sound from the three notes being played together.
To develop your ability to play this chord well, we are going to play this chord in our next exercise using whole notes. If you now look at the next exercise, you will see that we have placed the notes of A, C# and E on our musical stave.
A is on the second to bottom space, C the next space up and E in the top space. We have denoted that the C is sharp (black note) with our sharp symbol (#) next to it.
To help your reading of notes, it is worthwhile taking a few moments to familiarise yourself with the notes and where they are found on the stave.
Let us now play Exercise 3. As always, use the multimedia files to help you. When you play, go around the exercise until you are comfortable, counting clearly so that you know when to play.
Exercise 3. Playing an chord of A
Next: Playing the chord of A (using half notes)
