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I am not a teacher, but took for several years and as an adult, I am thinking about beginning lessons again. One thing that I always wanted to be able to do was arpeggios with the right hand to add flourishes to some simple songs. What is the way you teach your students to do this? Which keys do you start with? I don't know if what I do with three keys (Chords) is really arpeggios or not. I take my left hand and play C-E-G- and then the same thing with my right hand on the next octave and follow behind with the left hand and keep doing that all the way up the keyboard. However, I would love to be able to do arpeggios with the right hand and not hear any breaks as you move your thumb under. I am sure you know what I mean and I appreciate any help you can give. Thanks!

Start with the white-keyed arpeggios. First you can do C major arpeggio by playing C-E-G-C-G-E-C. The RH fingering should be 1-2-3-5-3-2-1, and LH fingering 5-3-2-1-2-3-5. You can do the same on G-B-D-G-D-B-G (G major), F-A-C-F-C-A-F (F major). You can use this same fingering then for the White-Black-White chords (D major, E Major & A Major), and then B Major.

Once you can do one octave in both hands easily (I usually have students do hands separately then together), then you can work on doing 2 octave arpeggios. To give you an idea of what this is like, you would play C-E-G-C-E-G-C on the way up and the reverse on the way down. The RH fingering would be 1-2-3-1-2-3-5, LH 5-3-2-1-3-2-1. The thumb crosses under finger 3. The way you do this without hearing any breaks is you have to turn the wrist horizontally (like waving hello) to minimize the distance for your thumb to cross under.

A helpful way to practice making the 2-octave arpeggio sound smoother is to start by playing it very slowly (each note as a half note or quarter note) but focussing primarily on tone quality (keeping them the same level of dynamics) and legato. Once that feels comfortable, try each note as a staccato, then try playing each note twice as you go up and down. That helps your fingers be able to navigate and get set in place where they ought to go. Once your fingers feel comfortable finding the notes, there are lots of creative things you can do with the rhythm to give your hand and fingers more practice - you can do any combination of 16th and 8th notes, swing them, make them into triplets, etc. etc.

Morodiene,

I was taught that LH fingering is 5-4-2-1 on all arpeggios except major arpeggios where the third happens to be a black key, like for example: D or A Major and others like these.

This is the fingering I teach.

Same here, I don't teach but I was taught that the usual left hand fingering is 5-4-2-1.

I was taught that as well, but I was told it was mainly for the purpose of creating space between fingers 4 & 5. However, you don't get anything like that for the RH, so I figure it's not worth it because you might as well do something like Hanon or another exercise if this is necessary and get it in both hands. I don't see any other reason for the 5-4-2-1 fingering, but let me know if there is another good reason and I'll reconsider.

When I was studying piano (I still am, but I mean for examinations) I could never really see the point of learning arpeggios. It seemed like playing scales, which had almost become an end in itself (ABRSM examiners seemed to have an obsession with four octave scales played in various ways).

Then I learnt to play the third movement, presto agitato, of Beehoven's Moonlight Sonata. My model for this was Daniel Barenboims rendition which is, without doubt, exceptionally fast and remarkably clean.

This is an excellent piece to learn to play right hand arpeggios brilliantly well as there are numerous variations in C sharp minor. Well worth the effort. It is also excellent for clean pedaling as the pedal is used barely at all except at some very precise points.

Different versions of the score have different fingering variations, but I use 1235, 1235, 1245, 1235 as I work up the three to four octaves that are covered. The different intervals require fingering variations and this makes a useful exercise.

The octave jumps require good thumb and hand movement technique too.

A

There are specific fingerings for arpeggios in each hand and for different keys. Some tricks for working smooth arpeggios are: point your fingers in the direction you are going, relax your arms in downstrokes on strong beats, work with the circular motion your arms take in arpeggio work, kind of a figure eight approach, stay fluid in your motions, the faster you go the lighter you should play each note.


Keith
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