11 Arpeggios Piano

[Vinnie Frevert]

Inthis lesson, Sangah Noona uses slash chords to make diatonic arpeggios sound super sophisticated. All this means is playing different broken diatonic chords over the same bass note used as a pedal point.

This one is more advanced, but you can start slow. Jess plays two different power chords with his left hand and a Bsus4 chord in his right, then makes the whole thing a blur with a schnazzy cross-over.

Lisa Witthas been teaching piano for more than 20 years and in that time has helped hundreds of students learn to play the songs they love. Lisa received classical piano training through the Royal Conservatory of Music, but she has since embraced popular music and playing by ear in order to accompany herself and others. Learn more about Lisa.

To play a C major arpeggio, you use the same notes but play them one at a time going up or down. So going up you would play the C first, then the E, then the G and then the C on TOP of the G. And you could keep going.

The second way that Arpeggios are notated in our piano music is by writing each note of the chord one at a time, instead of on top of each other as they are written for chords. (see image 3)

Arpeggios are important and fun to learn. They will teach your hands to move across the piano keyboard faster and with more confidence. You will also be able to play a lot more great piano music by increasing your technique skills to higher levels.

If you'd like to see what Arpeggios look like in piano music and practice playing some of them with me, click on this video to get started. You'll find extra tips and advice as well as Minor Arpeggios, practice examples, and a review quiz!

I don't plan to play them as quick as in the video, but I want to know how the lovely people of Music.SE recommend learning it. Looking at the grouping of the notation, I'm assuming it wants a Right-Left-Right style.

What I would like to know is how I should hold my hands, position my fingers etc. while playing them. How should I move my hands - left over the top or underneath? I know that to some extent it depends on the pianist, but I imagine there are some different techniques to try out. Can someone possibly suggest a few?

Ok, here goes. Notice that the beginning arpeggios are all just a D major, and you have the exact same shape on the keys for each chord. I don't know what fingering you are using, but if you take 3 notes per hand(ignoring the low D octave for a moment) you have the pattern Left,Right,Left, and then one note with the right hand at the top.

The key to practicing these arpeggios is to practice the chord shapes, and shifting positions. So set your metronome up at a slooooooooooow speed, and practice shifting chords, making sure that all fingers are in place before you play each chord. You don't need to do this to play with single note at slow speeds, because your fingers can compensate for not being in position while other notes of the same chunk are being played. With that in mind, at fast speeds your fingers do not have time to adjust, and so when they aren't ready on the key they will let you down and ruin your flow, as you mentioned in your question.

When overlapping hands I believe you always go over, but I could be wrong. The answer is most likely do what is most comfortable. So in this case it'll go left over right, right underneath to play the top note, Right over left on the way down, left underneath and then you're on to the next shape.

As far as the timing goes,I don't believe this passage is to be played strictly, but if you want to learn about the fun fun world of quintuplets and septuplets then this wiki is a nice place to start :)

Hold your hands to minimize movement. Position your fingers over the notes before playing them. (If I may say so, that's probably where you're having trouble; you probably are on mind overload and stabbing for keys a bit sideways without enough preparation.) Don't speed up too quickly. Try it at a tempo that you can handle, and get it right. Next time, keep the tempo much the same. You'll find that you get speed in little increments.

I'm just now learning the correct fingering for when practicing scales and arpeggios. Scales are going quite well, but when I practice arpeggios, I seem to have a lot of trouble with my thumb placement. More specifically when I move to the second octave.

For example with a C major arpeggio, I press C > E > G with my thumb, indexfinger and middlefinger. But then I need to move my thumb all the way across to the next C underneath my hand. My wrist feels very uncomfortable when I do this. I also often press the C key very hard because I need to move my thumb very quickly in order to make it in time. Even if I try to start out slowly. I try to move my elbow to the right when doing this movement and it helps slightly, but it still feels uncomfortable in my wrist.

The arm places the thumb. Using just your arm and gravity - not your thumb's abductor, play your thumb down on C, then from the arm, lift up the arm and hand and leading with your elbow play the octave higher C.

Regarding your wrist pain, a lot of times when a pianist crosses the thumb under the palm, they anticipate the next finger position and twist the wrist. This is called ulnar deviation going up and radial deviation going down. Eventually, too much twisting can cause problems. It will surely make you play unevenly and make your hands feel weak. Get your playing into your arms before you start using your fingers (forearm muscles).

To help propel your arm, and thumb, use your pronator and supinator muscles to rotate the forearm. They are located around your elbow. With your arm in front of your chest, rotate left and right very fast. Notice how fast you can move your thumb and pinky and notice that they don't fatigue at all. Those are the muscles you should use to play the thumb.

Also, because of rotation, remember that every motion has an equal and opposite motion. Using your pronator to play the first note with your thumb actually should start with supination. The rotation in the opposite direction gives the finger power and speed without using any muscles that actually move the fingers.

Throw something. Notice that you first swing in the opposite direction you are throwing the object. You need that in your piano playing but up, down, in, out, left and right. Try to play with a "still and quiet hand" and you will indeed create tension. Play from the arm and the hand will be still and quiet.

It's not so much making your thumb go underneath the fingers/palm as moving your whole hand. As soon as you've played the first C, the whole hand should have started to move right. By the time your middle finger hits the G, your thumb should be under that part of your palm. Whole hand then continues gently right, putting the thumb onto the next C.

The thump on that C is because you play the first three notes, then start to move your whole hand. Imagine instead your hand gently flowing to the right as each note gets played. As you then hit the second C, it stretches out so the other fingers are in line with the last three notes.

Try playing this arpeggio on B major. It should fit the right hand much more naturally. You can use this as a sort of transitional pattern to get the feel of passing the thumb under in an easier position. Compare it to the movement on C major.

Try playing the arpeggio descending as well as ascending. It shifts the which finger is last in the first position and first in the next. In other words, when ascending finger 3 is sort of 'holding' the first position, then finger 1 is in movement to get to the next position. When descending the finger roles are reversed, finger 1 is holding the first postion, finger 3 is in movement. It's a subtle difference, but it might help you get comfortable with the crossing under.

Also, you might try playing the full octave like this C4, E4, G4, C5 with fingering 1, 2, 3, 5. Then to change position you make a repeated note fingering on C5 using fingers 5, 1. Obviously, this doesn't directly practice passing the thumb under, but it will help with two things: help finger 1 spatially find C5, and contracting the hand to bring fingers 1 and 5 together. Both of those should help develop your hand and benefit crossing under.

Looking at a beautifully controlled and choreographed arpeggio, we notice a smoothness and fluidity in the way both arms move across the keyboard, seamlessly connected together and describing a gentle curve. If the arpeggio is played continuously as though on a loop, the curve turns into a figure of eight (or the infinity symbol), all angles rounded out. My general advice for arpeggios is to hold the elbows slightly higher than in scale playing. There will be a bit more space under the arms, as though a current of air from beneath were lifting the arms up slightly so that they appear to float. The golden rule is never drop the elbow down onto the thumb!

There are three main approaches to the thumb in arpeggio playing, all of which are viable. Which one you choose depends on the speed and musical character of the individual arpeggio as much as the particular school of piano playing you have inherited.

We achieve a physical legato to (and from) the thumb, the thumb travelling underneath the hand in the same way as in a scale. To achieve the necessary stretch comfortably the thumb needs to start its journey immediately, as soon as it releases its previous key, and the elbow needs to lead. This is the approach I recommend for beginners and intermediate level players presenting arpeggios for examination, and it is the most traditional. At the advanced level, I would introduce the thumb over approach as well as the arm shift.

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