How do you practice Arps?

[goalevan]

I have become very familiar with scales and chord inversions in all major and minor keys and I would like to start practicing my arpeggios, but I'm a little confused on where to start.

Do you go up and down the keyboard in each inversion separately, such as for C Major root, C E G | C E G | C E G C and back, then do the other inversion, or do you play all inversions up and down the keyboard such as: C E G C | E G C E | G C E G | C E G C.

I guess I'm just asking for the common way of practicing arps and a good way to get started. Thanks

[thierry13]

Do you go up and down the keyboard in each inversion separately, such as for C Major root, C E G C E G C E G C and back, then do the other inversion, or do you play all inversions up and down the keyboard such as: C E G C E G C E G C E G C E G C.

What's the difference between the two?? You have written C E G repeated the two times? Don't you mean ( the second time ): C E G E G C G C E C E G ?

[goalevan]

there, added lines where hand position changes on original post, by that I mean doing each inversion in order - root, 1st, 2nd, root, 1st, 2nd, root... etc.

the first one I mean doing only root, root, root, root all the way up and down the keyboard, then doing 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, etc. for each key.

[thierry13]

Ah ok, now i understand   Well, i would firstly do root root root, and after this make root 1st 2nd 3rd .

[alvaro_galvez]

I really dont recommend that.
Go up and down using all the inversions, and when you get to the top go (in the case of C for example) C E G E C G E C all the way down again and when you reach the bottom finish with (again in the case of C) C G E G C.
Use the same structure with the rest and you´ll do fine.

I dont know if thats clear, I will elaborate if you didnt get it.

[goalevan]

I don't really understand, by "all inversions" do you mean do them each separately or do them all together? And in those fingerings, whered does the direction reverse?

[alvaro_galvez]

Ok, here goes.

You should practice all inversions TOGETHER, this will help your technique and finger precision.

So lets use C maj as an example.

So you start with C (I generally do 4 octaves so lets do this), you go, C E G C (1st inversion) E G C E (2nd inversion) G C E G (3rd inversion), and back to root. So now youve done 1 octave. So keep goin like this for two more octaves and then...
4th Octave
Go C E G C, E G C E, G C E G and then back to the root with a bit of a turn for you to be able to go back down again with no problem so you use the root C E G E C (see the turn, instead of going directrly to C you repeat the E so the last C you play is converted to the FIRST C of the arpeggio that you will play going down this time).

Now for the arps going down.
You continue going down C G E C (root), G E C G (2nd), E C G E (3rd) and back to root. You continue this pattern until you get to the octave where you started. Here you will also do a turn when you get to the final root, go
C G E G C. (The turn being between G and E)

Do this with both hands using a 1 2 3 5 (root), 1 2 4 5 (second), 1 2 4 5 (third), 1 2 3 5 (root) fingering for the right and a 5 3 2 1 (root), 5 4 2 1 (second), 5 3 2 1 (third), 5 3 2 1 (root) for the left (this is for going up, just invert when you go down).
Remember this finguering is for the C maj as arps in other scales may vary.

Now this method is the method used in Russia (my teacher is russian and went to a big conservatory in Moscow, dont remember the name of the conservatory. This is in a book she gave me and she told me this is the best way to practice arpeggios and truly the results are marvelous).

Hope it helps  

[goalevan]

Thank you for the in depth reply I understand exactly what you mean now. So it's not ever necessary to practice inversions individually?

[alvaro_galvez]

Practicing this way will make all the inversions too easy to practice by themselves.