An Arpeggio Exercise That is a MUST

hi cats this is a small addition uh to the last video about efficient arpeggio playing the reason why professional pianists play arpeggios so fluently is of course because they train a lot and there's a very simple exercise used in a professional piano training at least it is very much used in the eastern european tradition however i'm sure that it's popular enough on the west as well it's called 11 types of arpeggios in my area where i'm from because surprise there is 11 types of arpeggios that you have to play within this exercise and curiously what i have noticed that students like this exercise much more than scales so let's jump to the start this exercise includes arpeggios using such chord as a major triad a minor triad the first inversion of the major triad the first inversion of the minor triad the second inversion of the major triad and then the the second inversion of the minor triad and then dominant 7th chord with all its inversion so and at the end number 11 is diminished 7th chord those are the most widely used arpeggios in classical music as you have noticed each of those scores you play from the very same note so how does it work of course we might start with the easiest task first and play this arpeggio for example two octaves long and we may play just with one hand at first i'm going to play the major triad arpeggio then the minor triad one and actually ideally you start playing the next one without any uh stops so your last note of the previous arpeggio is simultaneously the first note of the next one so it would be and then that was the first inversion the major chord and then the first inversion of the minor chord and then uh the second inversion of the major triad and the second inversion of the minor triad and then of course we start playing a dominant seventh chord then a first inversion of it this one is actually not that comfortable so when you go back you see it's a pretty wide distance so you either over jump it releasing your thumb slightly before or you have to rotate your wrist a little bit and you may even try to help yourself with an elbow the next inversion and the last one [Music] and the seventh diminished chord then as soon as you feel fluent with that you might play it with the left hand first and so on and then of course with both hands and so on and then when you feel fine with that when you can play it through without any problems you can start playing it four octaves long that is actually a standard for this exercise so in a standard this exercise would sound like [Music] as you have noticed i have played this without paddle at all because first of all i have to make sure that i produce a decent level of legato with my fingers and without pedal of course you hear better all uh problematic switch all dubuis position changes run nodes whatsoever so i really recommend you practice that without the pedal first and then when you are really satisfied with the quality without the pedal you can add pedal to even improve your legato plane and especially you can experiment with the pedal and the goal is not to play the whole arpeggio on the pedal so it would like sound over uh flood with pedal [Music] this is of course very much flooded with pedal but what we are trying to do here is to actually improve our legato by applying small drops of pedals so i'm going to use pedal somewhere uh in between position changes and i'm going to vibrate with my leg so dampers would move very closely to the strings so like here i would press pedal a little bit and lift it back and then press it again and lift it back press it again and lift it back so i'm trying to cover those parts of my arpeggios when i change positions so just to achieve a smoother effect because as i told in the previous video it's more efficient often not trying to connect those positions physically but kind of fly over them in the faster tempo you almost don't feel it but still you can even refine it by using some small drops of paddle but for this you really have to trample with your food very delicately like that and then when you feel comfortable with uh playing them for octaves long you can even make it more challenging and play not just up and down like you can also play it in a opposite motion so you play two octaves up and then you play them from this point you play them in the opposite directions and then you go up again and then again in the opposite directions at the end it will be like and then so on [Music] for me personally it's always tricky to play the lasting version of the seventh chord like this one because here you have to kind of spread all the fingers what helps a lot is really control that you don't have any tension that you're not really pressing those fingers and that you flatten your fingers a bit [Music] and you rotate your wrists a bit like that horizontally around the third finger which is a pivotal point in this case also a very good way to learn them is to play them really slowly and control that you transfer the weight of each finger to the next one releasing the previous one that is done so for example i hit the first finger then i played the second one and i just transferred the weight of my hand like from this finger to this one and this finger is just released quickly than this one and so on so in my school it was required to play this exercise from all white notes fluently because normally if you have an arpeggio starting from the black key you'd probably regroup your hand in order to use your thumb on the white key the rule is very simple long key namely white key short finger like one or five and opposite short key namely black one long finger like some of those ones if i would play some arpeggio like g flat f a flat g flat i obviously would start from the second finger and then use that position [Music] of course if you have an arpeggio with all black keys you don't have a choice you have to use your thumb on the black key but it's still wise to experiment with how you actually organize your positions because in this arpeggio i still have choice either to start with the thumb or i can start with the second finger and continue playing [Music] with that positions or i may even start with uh to four and play those positions i have really to try all those options and to understand what's really comfortable but actually i like this exercise so much uh so i decided to master it from every key including the black ones because black ones obviously also matter but if you feel like seeking a challenge you may try it after you master the white notes the difficult part here is that you really need to find an optimal hand movement between positions like because for example like uh playing that from the black key like from this one [Music] it's pretty much okay till that point but then [Music] this part i feel so narrow here actually my finger i have very thin fingers actually but still it i feel like it's going to stuck there and especially when i try to turn my hand so i have to find some some special movement for that like kind of over jumping it i have to release my finger very quickly in order to regroup my hand for the next one because if i will have any stress here this sleep would be more challenging i have explained all these strategies in the previous video about arpeggios so check it out for more information that's it for today thanks for watching please like subscribe share this video and have fun playing piano hi everyone this is you

Channel: Denis Zhdanov

Views: 55,553

Keywords: piano arpeggios, learn piano arpeggios, piano arpeggios lesson, piano arpeggios tutorial, simple piano arpeggio, left hand arpeggio, piano left hand, arpeggios accompaniment, chords arpeggios, chord arpeggios tutorial, how to play arpeggios, arpeggio patterns, arpeggio lesson, arpeggio tutorial, how to practice arpeggios, piano arpeggios exercises, piano lessons, piano tutorial, piano arpeggios for beginners, arpeggio, learn to play arpeggios on piano, zhdanov, piano, chopin

Id: q4qgpRJO-Mk

Length: 13min 12sec (792 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021