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An arpeggio, or broken chord, is when you play the notes of a chord individually, one after another.
This gives you the ability to play chords in different ways and can add variety when playing through a chord progression.
Many players and composers use arpeggios in their work so it is a vital tool to learn and apply into your playing.
The following basic exercises are to get acquainted with arpeggios and a two-handed arpeggio technique known as the butterfly technique.
Remember that even though these examples are all in C it would be very advisable to transpose these exercises around the circle of 5ths.
C Major Chord and Inversions
Example P1
Go over each group slowly at first and memorise the fingering for each inversion.
C7th Type Chords
Example P2
Go over each group slowly at first and memorise the fingering for each 7th chord.
C Major Arpeggio and Inversions
Example P3
Each group is a two octave arpeggio and its inversions.
Remember to execute this with as much legato as possible.
The Butterfly Technique
The butterfly technique is when you move up or down the keyboard using arpeggios and alternating hands.
This is because your hands look a little like two dancing butterflys as you move across the keyboard.
Begin with the left-hand arpeggio, then follow with the right hand an octave higher.
The left hand then plays again an octave higher, etc. until you finish off and return back down the keyboard.
The following examples touch on a few of these ideas but there are many
different ways to use this technique.
Example P4
Example P5
Example P6
As there are many different types of chords, you may also want to refer to the section on chord spelling for ideas about other arpeggios.
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