Arpeggios are simply broken chords. Scales and arpeggios form the foundation of technique, not just for the piano, but for virtually all musical instruments. I’ve talked about how to practice scales and arpeggios in the past. Today, I’m going to give you three ways of practicing arpeggios specifically. If you like this, I could probably give you 10 more ways of practicing them because there are many ways of practicing arpeggios.

Here are three good starters for you:

Let’s start with a basic C major chord which forms the foundation of a C major arpeggio. Since you’re going all the way up and down the keyboard with both hands, you have to deal with finger crossings. I suggest you reference Hanon – 60 Selected Studies for the Virtuoso Pianist. This is a resource for all the fingerings of all major and minor scales and arpeggios as well as exercises and additional materials. The first way to practice arpeggios is perhaps the most fundamental. I’ve talked about this before in videos and I’m going to recap this because it’s essential.

You must practice slowly first to develop independence of the fingers.

As you get faster, place the fingers closer to the keys to get speed and lightness. You want to use the metronome when practicing arpeggios and scales because the whole idea is to measure your playing because you want to achieve precision. You must strive for evenness in tone, touch and timing.

Of course you can practice arpeggios with different phrasing and dynamics. For now, I’m going to suggest you play them at a strong level always from the fingers. It won’t do any good to practice arpeggios or scales using your arms or wrists because as you go faster, they’re not going to be able to keep up. The whole idea is to develop the strength of your fingers. So, watch how you can approach arpeggios slowly. If you’re a beginner studying arpeggios, I recommend putting the metronome at 60 and going one note to the beat, then two notes to the beat, and finally playing at four notes to the beat. You can even do gradual metronome speeds raising a notch or two at a time if you run into difficulties going faster. There is a brief demonstration on the accompanying video on how to practice this way with the metronome.

Notice a couple of things. First of all, you want to avoid any up and down motion with the arms. Use only your fingers. Notice how you raise your fingers to achieve independence and strength. You get the feel of exactly where each key is. It provides an opportunity to dig into each note gaining security. Once you’re comfortable, you should do that at least four times before moving on any faster. Then you can go to two notes to the beat. Notice, as you get faster, the fingers must be closer to the keys. When transitioning to four notes to the beat, you want to have your arms almost floating in air just above the keys because they don’t have the strength to support the arms at great speed. At four notes to the beat there’s less motion of your fingers as well. They are kept very close to the keys. You must spend sufficient time at each speed. At one note to the beat, you might spend around five minutes mastering it. If you’re playing only an arpeggio at one note to the beat at 60, five minutes is a pretty long time! This helps you gain great strength and independence of the fingers.

So we’ve covered one way of practicing arpeggios which is essential. It think it’s probably one of the best ways to practice arpeggios. You may get to a stumbling block and get to a point where you know you can do one note, but getting to two notes or four notes to the beat proves to be very difficult. You’re wondering how you can get it any faster. Are there any shortcuts? I’m going to show you a couple!

One shortcut is to practice in chords. Here is how to do this: Delineate where the thumb crossings are and play two notes together, then play the thumbs. You can watch how to achieve this on the accompanying video. Once you are comfortable, you can do that at two notes to the beat. Doing four notes is probably too fast for this practice technique depending upon the tempo you choose You want to get it fluent so you get the sense of the thumb crossings which are essential for smooth transition of registers. Instead, of trying to go faster, try breaking up the inner notes quickly and land on the thumbs securely holding them longer so that you gain security of the thumb crossings in both hands. This helps you get the sense of how the thumbs anchor you versus the finger which hover over the other two notes of the chord. You must strive for evenness playing the inner notes cleanly.

I talk with people about this subject often. Any time you take a leave of absence from a musical instrument there is going to be some extra work involved in getting back into top playing form. I’m going to provide a few tips here to help you get back into good shape to play.

Luckily, the piano is one of the easier instruments to pick up after a long absence. I also play the French horn and I can tell you from experience that picking up a wind instrument after even a short absence is a big challenge. In the case of a wind instrument, your lips will become fragile after being away from your instrument, and playing too hard right away can blow them out – making it so you can’t play again for a while. It’s a very delicate process and you must build up slowly.

When it comes to the piano, your hands and arms matter most. If you’ve battled with tendentious, arthritis, or any other types of ailments you should definitely ease yourself into playing a bit slower. Even if you haven’t experienced any of these problems, you should still be careful. Jumping right in with some advanced repertoire could lead to injury.

The best thing you can do is simply play. Start with easier pieces you know and work your way back up. More important that just picking the right repertoire is simply playing again. Practicing will help you develop strength and you’ll be surprised how quickly you can get back into shape. Specifically pick some pieces that allow you to stretch the fingers and stay away from pieces that are percussive and hard at first.

You can play exercises – like scales and arpeggios or some of the one’s I’ve mentioned in previous videos – but the best thing you can do is simply start playing music again. Starting with something slow is your best bet and simply work your way up to faster and more complex music.

This is a loaded question and it’s a topic that may cause controversy – especially among some piano teachers. There are different perspectives on this important subject. As always, I welcome everyone’s comments and suggestions when it comes to every topic we cover so please feel free to voice your opinion.

I also understand that some students can become frustrated by having to practice tedious exercises for hours and hours when they would much rather be playing music. But are these exercises in vain or is there a purpose to them?

Exercises are an important part of developing as a pianist. In many cases utilizing Hanon and Czerny can be a great way to develop strength in your playing. These exercises can help you develop pure technique without having to deal with nuanced expression, complex rhythms, melodies and countermelodies. By using Hanon or Czerny, you can learn exercises with lots of notes much much quicker than many piano pieces which can have additional elements of complexity not found in these exercises.

What about the relative value of learning exercises instead of learning music? A lot of times musical etudes – advanced ones such as Chopin or Moszkowski or student level etudes of Heller or Burgmuller – can provide the same benefit of strength building you get from Czerny or Hanon with the added benefit of providing pieces of music you can add to your repertoire.

There really is a balance you must reach when it comes to learning exercises versus learning music. In the early levels of studying the piano learning exercises provides a great way to develop strength. Hanon exercises can help you develop finger strength very quickly. The early exercises in the book are great for beginning pianist because you don’t have to deal with finger crossings or cumbersome musical challenges. It’s an easy and simple way to start playing the piano immediately developing strength in your fingers. Younger students can quickly master these exercises and prepare themselves for learning music.

Once you master all of your scales and arpeggios you can continue building strength simply by playing music. You will challenge yourself much more and develop your technique along with continuing to work on scales and arpeggios.

So yes, there are benefits to exercises, but you shouldn’t be relying on them as your only source of technical development. They provide a great foundation for building your technique but they are something you should augment with scales and arpeggios and substantial musical repertoire.

Many times you can actually create your own exercises by taking sections of music you have great difficulty with. Take these sections and generate patterns, bring out different voices, or create rhythmic variations to challenge yourself. Exercises come in all forms and sizes and you shouldn’t be afraid to create your own!

This is a very important issue when it comes to playing any instrument. There are books written on how to warm up on the piano and countless techniques and exercises you can utilize. I’m going to share a few tips with you that I use in my own practice and performances. The good news is, none of this is as complicated as you might think.

Let’s start holistically. Any warm-up is predicated on you being physically healthy; if you are ailing from anything such as stiff muscles, soreness, illness, or anything that would hinder your well being, it can affect your performance on the piano. If you suffer from any chronic ailments, you should take your time with easing into playing the piano.

The first thing you will want to do is make sure that your hands are warm. If you have cold hands it means that your blood is not circulating well and if you just start playing virtuoso music without warming up your hands you could do some damage. An easy solution for this is to run warm water over your hands so you feel comfortable before you start playing.

I strongly recommend doing some stretching on a regular basis – whether it’s yoga or simple stretches you would perform before a workout. This can be incredibly valuable to your long-term health as well as keeping you injury free while performing.

If you’ve played music for any length of time you may be familiar with etudes. What they are exactly is a two part answer, because there are fundamentally two different types of etudes. Even though they are both called etudes, these two different types are radically different from one-another. So let’s explore this topic and explain the differences in etudes and how they relate to your music.

Etude comes from the French word meaning, “study”. Etudes generally focus on overcoming specific technical challenges. One type of etude is strictly an exercise. There are famous Czerny and Hanon etudes that are famous exercises, but they aren’t pieces people generally perform. Their main purpose is to develop technique on an instrument.

Most Hanon etudes are simply a series of repeated note patterns. They are valuable for younger students to develop strength. Hanon Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises also contains the standard fingering for all major and minor scales and arpeggios, a staple for serious pianists. Brahms and Czerny also have etudes that are used for developing technique as opposed to necessarily providing great musical compositions. However, some Czerny etudes are quite enjoyable to listen to.

The other type of etudes are musical etudes. Chopin, Liszt, and others have created masterful pieces of music called etudes. These etudes explore different technical issues such as double thirds, sixths, octaves and other unique challenges. Yet, they are masterful works of music.

Musical etudes from Chopin, Liszt, Moszkowski, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff and others are sometimes extremely complex and can be daunting for intermediate students to attempt to play. But the good news is there are some musical etudes from composers such as Burgmüller that are very nice pieces of music which help develop technique, yet provide intermediate level students with richly rewarding music to play! There are musical etudes that range from student level to virtuoso. Mastering a musical etude can greatly benefit your development as a pianist and give you music to perform as well.

One of the most common questions I get is how to build strength on the piano. This is a tough topic because practicing the wrong way can potentially lead to injury, so you must always be aware of how you feel. The fact is, there is no simple method to instantly gain more strength in your piano playing – but this exercise will definitely help.

This is a very tough exercise that will take some practice to master. However, with persistence and patience you will find that this can be a very beneficial exercise to use and it’s something that you’ll only have to do once every practice session.

If this exercise is too challenging, try this exercise first: