Practicing arpeggios.

[sinspawnammes]

I don't really see much discussion on this.  When people ask about scales, there's plenty of links that pop up concerning fingering, scale charts, books on the subject, etc.  But not much about arpeggios.  I have a few questions though:

Which ones should be practiced.  Naturally, the triadic ones are pretty important (C-E-G-C-etc), but what about those that Chopin uses (they're usually more like melodies, but arps in their execution IMO)?  I see so little information on the topic that I figured I would ask for it.

[debussy symbolism]

Greetings.

I believe that Arpeggios are extremely important and practice them with very caution. I work on the whole chord, finishing with the octave. I do short, broken and long arpeggios. I apply both the fingers for accuracy and the wrist for movement and fluid motion. I am always trying to remain relaxed and play with out any tension, starting slow and working my way up the speed. I also do excercises that develop arpeggio technique such as interval repetition, exact interval alternation, arpeggio burst in each inversion, etc. I think that this is a very serious matter.

[lung7793]

practicing them in inversions is very good...play C major but start on E or G.  switch it up with the hands...have the left hand start on the root, right hand start on the 3rd or 5th, etc.  They're as prevalent as scales in most music, maybe even more so, so they should be practiced just as much.

[walking_encyclopedia]

thanks for bringing this up this is a very ignored subject

i warm up everyday doing scales in 24 keys in sixteenths with mm running from 90 to 144 bpm, and arpeggios in all three inversions (in all 24 keys) with mm running from 88 to 120 bpm.

this kind of technique practice will get your hands and more importanty wrists to become flexible which is imperative if you have any serious aspirations.

scales will employ some wrist flexibility, but arpeggios really develop it. just try to keep your wrist extremely relaxed while playing the arpeggios. if you don't you'll have a very hard time increasing speed. if you do you'll be able to play them crazy fast

remember that if you stiffen your wrists while playing you run the risk of injuring yourself.

good luck.

danny

[lostinidlewonder]

The point to study scales, arpeggios chords or any patterns at the piano is to be able to recognise them in pieces we study. If we recognise the pattern in pieces we learn then we use this to learn the piece faster. Because it is a procedure we have trained in isolation in the past many times the movement is effortless for us to produce.

The sad fact is that most people can do the building blocks of music all great by themselves but when put into a practical sitation like learning a piece of music they have no idea what to do, or how to use pattern to help themselves!