Ah… the arpeggio. A miracle of cascading notes that produces a beautiful sound on the piano. For most it is a mystery how it is created. But for those who understand chords, it’s just a matter of practicing until you master the pattern.
Now, the arpeggio can be used with both the right and left hands (or both at the same time), but it is usually the left hand that adopts this amazing technique. Let’s see how an extended arpeggio pattern could be used to create an improvisation.
The first thing to know about most left hand arpeggios is that they usually start below the middle of the keyboard. Most pianists start their journey below middle C. and there is a good reason for this: bass notes!
Those thunderous, resonant bass sounds that reverberate in the body are hit and the piano comes to life!
Now, you have to be careful here because if you play too many bass notes together, the effect can end up sounding “muddy”. That is, you will not be able to differentiate the notes and you will end up with sonic mud. But, if you distribute the first notes, this will not happen. That’s why the open position chord is perfect for starting the left hand arpeggio. For example, suppose you want to play an arpeggio of C major 9.
Of course, it will start with the note C (which is also the root note). Now, we could play the third (e), but if we do, we’ll probably end up with that “blurry” effect. No, a better way is to play the fifth followed by the eighth or seventh tone.
What I like to do is playing a pattern that looks like this: 1-5-8-9-3, which means I’m playing these notes: cgcde. This pattern produces a beautiful “new age” sound and is frequently used in New Age piano performance.
For example, look at the lesson “Return Home”. Here we play an extended arpeggio in the left hand and use more than 2 octaves of the keyboard. It’s quite an exercise and it’s good for moving your left hand!