Dear piano lovers, here we are with the 3rd edition of the Finger Fitness for piano series, dedicated to the warm-up of your hands and fingers. In this edition we will talk about the arpeggios of minor and major triads. And it’s very useful to do this exercise every time before you start jamming with your favorite song.
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
In this Finger Fitness for piano blog post you’ll find:
Recap of the previous edition:
In the previous Finger Fitness for piano 2nd edition we talked about:
- Major and minor third musical intervals, forming major and minor triads;
- How to play major and minor thirds within the A minor scale with right, left and both hands.
Arpeggio
On the piano we can play all the notes of a chord simultaneously, as shown when we played intervals in the previous edition, or we can play the notes of a chord one after another. These are two artistic approaches suitable in different musical contexts.
Playing an arpeggio of a chord is a very common technique of playing notes of a certain chord in a sequence. Simply put, an arpeggio is a sequence of notes that makes up a particular chord. We play these notes in ascending or descending order.
Let’s take a look at an example of the C major triad, which has three notes:
This triad has three notes: C, E and G. So, we can play these notes in ascending or descending order. See an example below:
Let’s take a look at an example of the D minor triad:
This triad has three notes: D, F, A. The ascending and descending order will be:
Arpeggio exercise for the right hand
Now you know what arpeggio means. And it’s time to apply it in an exercise, where you’ll combine two good things: your fingers will learn how to play ascending and descending arpeggios for major and minor triads, and you will practice these arpeggios in a smooth way up and down the piano keyboard.
For this exercise, we will play triads from each note of the C major scale. We’ve just talked about C major and D minor triads in the previous paragraph. Let’s find triads from the E, F, G, A and B notes.
And now is the time to sit back comfortably at your piano and start playing!
In this exercise we’ll play ascending arpeggios for each triad. In the music sheet we prepared for you, the finger indications are for the right hand.
While playing this exercise, make sure that both your hands and shoulders are relaxed. Each finger is hovering over the corresponding note and following the indications of the fingers, as written in the music sheet for this exercise:
The descending line together with the finger indications will look like this:
And here is an example of ascending and descending lines with finger indications:
Check our explanatory video for this exercise:
Arpeggio exercise for the left hand
If you feel like you’re already overwhelmed with the exercise for the right hand – stop here, keep practicing the right hand and come back later when you feel that you’re ready to start training your left hand.
If you’re full of energy and curiosity – happy to hear that! Let’s continue with the left hand by playing the same triads we just played with the right hand, but the octave lower.
Below is an example of the ascending lines written in the bass clef, which is quite typical for left hand piano charts. You can also see the finger indications there.
Again, while playing this exercise, make sure that both your hands and shoulders are relaxed and each finger is hovering over the corresponding note.
And here is the descending line together with the finger indications:
Now let’s combine the ascending and descending lines:
Check our explanatory video for this exercise:
Arpeggio exercise for both hands
Hey piano enthusiasts, we’ve just covered a lot of information about playing arpeggios and triads with the left and right hand. Do you still have the strength to play the final exercise? If not – no worries! Take your time and come back to continue when you feel ready.
But if you’re still here and hungry for more – great! Here is the final step for this article, which is…. to play these triads with both right and left hands. Relax your hands and shoulders, and make sure that the fingers of both hands hover over the corresponding notes.
Final thoughts
In this Finger Fitness 3rd edition for Piano we’ve learned how to play triads as ascending or descending arpeggio and we practiced that from each note of the C major scale. This is one of the artistic techniques of playing chords in various musical situations. Arpeggios are used in melodies and improvisation.
You can apply arpeggios by playing along with one of the songs from our Piano essentials channel. And for real beginners we have the Easy piano songs channel.
Happy jamming!
