Piano Chord Finder

How to use the piano chord finder

Click any white or black key to select it. The keyboard shows two full octaves so you can build wider chord voicings, but which octave you click in does not change the result: clicking a C in the lower octave and clicking a C in the higher octave both represent the same note, "C", and either one lights up the matching key in the other octave automatically. This mirrors how chords actually work on a real piano, where the same chord can be played in different positions up and down the keyboard and still keep the same name.

As soon as two or more keys are selected, the result below the keyboard updates immediately: an exact match shows the full chord name, and a partial match (for example you have a root and a fifth but no third yet) shows which single key to add to complete a recognized chord. Press Clear to start over, or Play to hear the selected notes played back as a chord.

• Click any key, white or black, in either octave
• The same note in both octaves highlights together automatically
• A result appears once two or more keys are selected
• Play lets you check the chord sounds the way you expected
• Clear resets the keyboard to build a new chord from scratch

Finding a piano chord shape by feel

Many pianists learn chord shapes by feel long before they can name every interval involved: a common approach is starting on any white key, skipping one key, landing on the next available key of either color, skipping one more, and landing again. That shape, played from different starting keys, produces either a major or minor triad depending on exactly which keys the skips land on. If you know the shape you played but not its name, click the same keys here in the same pattern and the tool names it for you immediately.

A useful habit when checking a chord this way is to click the lowest note you played first, then work upward: it does not change the identification (the tool checks the full set of selected notes regardless of click order), but it keeps your own mental model of the chord consistent with how it is written and read in sheet music, root at the bottom, other notes stacked above it.

Worked examples on the keyboard

A basic major triad. Click C, then E (skip the black key and the D), then G (skip the F and F#). This is the classic root position C major shape most beginners learn first, and the tool returns C Major.

Its relative minor. Starting from the same C, move only the middle key down one half-step to Eb (the black key just to the left of E), keeping C and G the same. This single change turns the chord into C Minor, a good way to feel the difference between major and minor with your own hand rather than just reading about it.

A jazzier 7th chord. Add Bb (the black key just to the left of B) to the C major triad from the first example. Four keys, C, E, G and Bb, gives a dominant 7th chord, C7, the sound behind countless blues and jazz progressions and a natural next shape to learn once plain triads feel comfortable.

An open, ambiguous sus4. Click C, F and G instead of a triad's usual third. Because F sits a fourth above the root rather than a major or minor third, this "suspended" chord sounds neither happy nor sad, more like it is waiting to resolve somewhere else, and the tool correctly labels it C sus4.

Reading black key names: sharps and flats on piano

Every black key on a piano sits between two white keys and can be named two different ways depending on the surrounding key signature: the black key between C and D, for example, is called C# ("C sharp", a half-step above C) in some contexts and Db ("D flat", a half-step below D) in others. It is the exact same physical key and the exact same pitch either way, so this tool's identification never depends on which spelling you were thinking of: results are shown with both spellings, like C#/Db, wherever the matched chord could reasonably be written either way.

A simple rule of thumb while learning the keyboard: the two groups of black keys, one group of two and one group of three, repeat identically across the whole piano, which is why the same finger shapes for a chord work in every octave, and why clicking C in one octave and C in another on this tool's keyboard both mean exactly the same thing.

Prefer typing plain note names instead of clicking a keyboard? The chord finder uses the exact same dictionary with a simple note grid. Already know the chord name and want its notes instead? Try the reverse chord finder.