Left Hand Arpeggios – One Way To Play Chords

Good morning, this is Duane and today I’d like to talk about left hand arpeggios. An arpeggio, as you probably know, is simply a broken chord. A chord is three or more notes, could be four notes, could be five notes, whatever. But I’ll talk about three note chords right now.

Arpeggio means to break up the chord so the simplest way to break up a chord is from the bottom up and back down. If you’re in four time, it would simply be one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four that’s presuming you were playing the C chord. If you were playing D flat, it would be one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. The D chord would be like so and so on.

Now there’s a lot of variations to that. You can play it in eighth notes and if you did that you might create an Alberti bass, Alberti was a composer in the 17th Century and he used that style a lot where you hit the bottom note then the top note, you don’t play the middle note. Bottom, top and then middle top. Bottom, top, middle top, middle top, middle top, bottom, top, middle top, middle top, middle top, bottom, top, middle top, middle top, middle top, whatever the chords was. That sort of thing.

Bottom, top, middle top, middle top, middle top and you can hold the bottom note if you wish or it depends on the song that you’re playing. That’s an Alberti bass type of arpeggio.

Then you can use an open voice arpeggio, that means you stretch it out. Instead of playing every single note, you leave the middle note out, play at that note and then go up a octave and play that and then back down. You’re playing the root of the chord, the fifth of the chord and the third of the chord an octave higher. Let me do it an octave lower so you can see it. Usually you press your damper pedal so that you get that, you connect the notes.

In eighth notes it would be one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and you’ve heard that sort of thing. That’s a open voice arpeggio and you simply … I have a small hand so I can’t reach that so I have to pivot on my index finger and then swing up with my thumb, like so. For those with a larger hand, it’s easy because you don’t have to pivot, most people can reach that but I can’t. That works.

Of course, if the chord is D flat, you would play it that way. If the chord was D, it’s always root, fifth, third, fifth, third, fifth, third, fifth. E flat, root, third, fifth, third, fifth and so on.

Then you can use a hand over arpeggio. I call it hand over arp, where you start out like that but then you bring your third finger over and play the upper notes of the chord. You see the three notes of the chords you’re dealing with is just C, E and G. You play G, I mean C, G, E, G, C and then back down. C, G, E, G, C, G, E, G. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. One and two and three and four and one and two and you see that, you just roll your hand over, whatever the chord is. Root, fifth, third, fifth, root, fifth, third, fifth and back down.

There’s some left hand arpeggio styles you can plug into your music. Now there’s right hand broken chords styles too but we’ll investigate those at a different time.

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Thanks for being with me and we’ll see you tomorrow with another piano tip. Bye-bye for now.

YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqbnfHC4Mkk&feature=youtu.be