Not sure where to start when practicing
piano arpeggios, or even what an arpeggio is? By the way, be sure to say arpeggios to your
friends to really impress them. But let's say you have no idea what an arpeggio is, so you
definitely don't know how to practice one. Be sure to stay tuned to this video because we
have six piano arpeggios that every beginner should practice. Also, be sure to go to
the link in the description to download the PDF that has every single one of these
arpeggios that I mentioned in the video, that way you can practice them at home, at your
piano. And while you're at it, be sure to press the subscribe button and the bell to be notified
every single time I post a video about how to play the piano quickly so that you can learn how to
play your favorite songs in months, not years. I've used these piano arpeggios with hundreds of
students who have come through my music school. These arpeggios are simple, easy to follow
and pretty so that you can enjoy playing them. So, what even is an arpeggio? Let's
start with what a chord is first. A chord is when we are playing multiple
notes at the same time, like this. This, what I just played, is known as the
C major chord. I am playing the note C, E, and G at the same time. An arpeggio is
a chord that is broken apart like this. I'm still playing the C major chord, but it's
just broken into different pieces. We hear this all the time in popular music. I'm sure you've
heard it in Alicia Keys' If I Ain't Got You. We would call these arpeggios going downward
because we're going lower. We also hear arpeggios in the very popular Beethoven's moonlight
sonata. These arpeggio are moving upwards. That is because we are going down up or low to
high. Another really great example of arpeggio is in Adele's Someone Like You. In this example,
the arpeggios are moving upwards and downwards. So as you can see, we hear it in
popular music all the time and even in classical music like Beethoven's
Moonlight Sonata. So as you can see, arpeggios are really important to learn how to
get good at because we hear them all the time. Like I said before, there are many ways to play
arpeggios, but today I'm giving us six arpeggios to start with. These are the top arpeggios I
recommend for beginners to play when they're just starting out learning the piano. This is
going to help you build your technique and it's also going to help you build the ability to play
lots of popular music. With today's arpeggios, we're going to go from C major to E minor to F
major to G major. So here are the chords. C major. Then we're going to move downwards to E minor.
Then we're going to go to F major. Then we're going to go to G major. Why I picked these chords?
Because one, they sound good together, and two, they're easy mostly to navigate because E minor,
F major and G major are right next to each other. Arpeggio number one is called the upwards
arpeggio. Before you start any of these arpeggios, I recommend simply just practicing the chord
progression first. So again, we're going from C major, which is C, E, G, to E minor, which
is E, G, B to F major, which is F, A, C, then G major, which is G, B, D. Practice
doing this first before even getting going on these arpeggios. If you can't play a chord, then
you're definitely not going to be able to play an arpeggio. So just do this a few times. It might
be a little slower for you as you get started. Once you're ready, let's get going on arpeggio
number one. I'm going to do the arpeggio in my right hand and I'm going to play an octave in my
left hand. That's C to C. You could also just play one note with your pinky or your thumb, just C.
Here is arpeggio number one, the upwards arpeggio. Now, here are my tips for good technique when
doing the exercise. Start on C major. Have a relaxed hand. Do not have stiff fingers. If
you have stiff fingers, you are not going to be able to play arpeggios. You have to relax.
So relax the wrist, sit up straight and tall, and flow through that arpeggio. While you're
playing the C major arpeggio, start mentally preparing for the E minor arpeggio because
that one is far away. You got to make a jump. So while I'm playing C major,
I'm thinking E minor's next. And notice I'm actually preparing my left hand a
little in advance of my right hand. Watch this. Now I'm thinking of F major.
Get ready to jump to C. All right, that is our upwards arpeggio. Remember
that [inaudible 00:06:47] moving from low to high. Now we're going to go to arpeggio number two,
which is the upwards and downwards arpeggio, just similar to Adele's Someone Like You. Again, we're
going to go C major, E minor, F major, G major. On this one, I'm going to do fifths in my
left hand, so I'm just going to play C and G, E and B, F and C, G and D. So I'm
playing the chord in my left hand, but I'm leaving out the middle note. Here we go. I would do similar technique with this one,
preparing the chord in advance, thinking about what's next, having that relaxed wrist, relaxed
arms, sitting up nice and straight. We want to flow through these arpeggios. Think of the same
technique for the upwards and downwards arpeggios. Now we're going to move to arpeggio number
three, which I call the waves arpeggio. This one can sound really cool and is a great
way to impress your friends, just a tip. The wave is exactly what you think. We are
waving through these notes from bottom to top. Keep relaxed arms. If you are stiff, you're
not going to be able to do it. Okay? Relax, get ready. Notice that I prepared my left
hand in advance before I went to E minor. You can play that slower than this. You don't have to go as fast as me.
Notice how my wrists are relaxed. But once you're ready and it's becoming easier to
you, speed it up. This is a great way to show off. All right, now that we've done three arpeggios, be sure to comment below and let me
know which one is your favorite so far. The fourth arpeggio is what I call the fifth
in the middle arpeggio, and this is actually now a left hand arpeggio. I love using this
type of arpeggio with slow, pretty popular songs. For example, I love to play this type
of arpeggio with somewhere over the rainbow. Sounds really beautiful. So let's do this arpeggio
with our chord progression. C major, E minor, F major, G major, and then back to C major. I'm
going to be having my left hand in an octave, so C to C, but my finger number two is
going to live on the fifth of the chord or on G. So my left hand is going to again
be very relaxed and I'm going to rock through these notes. Notice that my hand is not glued to
the keys. I'm relaxed, I'm flowing. Let's not be stiff. Again, that's so important when playing
arpeggios. Then I'm going to go to minor. Again, I'm going to think in advance and jump.
Now I'm going to go E, B, E. Ready? Then I'm going to go to F.
So it's F, C, F. G, D, F, and then I'm going to go to a C octave
at the end. What I'm going to do in my right hand is just play the chord,
the regular chord. So let's hear it. All right, moving on to our next arpeggio,
arpeggio number five. I call this arpeggios with the sixth. So I'm adding the sixth note in
the scale to our arpeggios. So in our example, it's going to sound like this. I'm going
to keep doing that thing where I've got the fifth in the middle, but I'm going to
bring my thumb up one note and play C, G, D. That would be the sixth note, G, and then I'm
going to go back to the regular one. C, G, C, G. Watch that again. C, G, D, G, C, G, C, G.
Watch me play it a little faster. It's pretty. Now I'm going to move to the next one on E
minor. There's an F sharp here for the sixth. Now I'm going to go to F major. G major. This is a really good one to have the sheet
music download with so you can really see every single note while you're practicing it.
I'm going to play this for you really slowly. That one might take a little bit more practice.
Again, I recommend downloading that PDF. Now we're going to go to the most
difficult arpeggio, arpeggio number six. Arpeggio number six is a two octave arpeggio. All
right, so let's show you what that means with just C major first. I'm going to use finger one, two,
three instead of what I've been doing before, which was one, three, five. I'm doing one, two,
three. Then I'm going to curve my thumb under. So I played two octaves of arpeggios right
there. Here's the fingers again, one, two, three, curve under, one, two, three,
five, three, two, one, three, two, one. Again, I've been saying over and over
in this video, have relaxed wrists. It matters the most here. You cannot
do it if your wrists are not relaxed. So now I'm going to do this with our chord
progression. I'm going to start with C major. Now I'm going to move down to E
minor, F major, and now G major. Then I'm going to end with a nice C major chord. Let's watch that one more time. We're going
to use the same fingers with every chord. All right. These are six arpeggio that start more
beginner and get more difficult as you go. We started with right hand arpeggios, then we added
in some left hand arpeggios. We mixed them up so that you can add these to all kinds of popular
songs that you love. If you're one of those people who's struggling to learn the piano, maybe music
theory is really holding you back. You've had a music teacher before in the past and you just keep
getting stuck on the same songs, playing Mary Had a Little Lamb, when all you want to do is play
the songs you love like The Beatles, Adele, Taylor Swift, all kinds of different songs. Those are the
songs you're wanting to learn, but your teachers aren't teaching you that. I would recommend
setting up a call with us if you are interested in going from being a beginner to playing your
favorite songs in months instead of years. There's a link in the description to set up a call
with us, and we'd love to chat with you about it. Be sure to like and subscribe to this video
if you enjoyed it, and be sure to comment below. Let me know which arpeggio is your
favorite, which one's the most challenging, what helped you the most in this video? I'd
love to hear from you. Be sure to comment below. Don't forget to download that PDF in
the description, and I'll see you next time.
