Whilst it is possible to work towards increasing your hand span, it’s fair to say that not all of us are blessed with hands that can stretch enough to get comfortable hand positions at all times, meaning that we are often faced with the challenge of playing pieces of music smoothly whilst stretching our fingers out to reach certain notes.
Yet a lot of the time, simple piano techniques that we learn from the off - such as arpeggios - are exactly what we need to be doing!
Rather than work in C major for my examples, I’m going to work in D major as the stretch here is a little more awkward by default thanks to the third being a black note (F♯).
Let’s remind ourselves of the D major triad and arpeggio:
D - F♯ - A makes up our triad, and an arpeggio is a chord played from bottom to top and back down, with the top note being the same as the bottom (so one octave of a D major arpeggio would be D - F♯ - A - D - F♯ - A - D).
This is a fairly simple technique to incorporate into our playing because most people can span at least just short of an octave, so whilst they can’t necessarily span the entire stretch it requires only the subtlest of wrist / arm movements to help them reach the notes.
Therefore, this half of the blog isn’t really of huge benefit to you!
But this half is:
Rearrange the Notes of an Arpeggio to Span More of the Piano Keyboard
That’s right - and that doesn’t mean just to do a simple inversion.
Try removing a note and switching it up and arpeggiating it that way. It’s not a strict arpeggio any more, but the technique you’ll be learning and the way you’ll be encouraging your wrist and arm to naturally move up and down using fairly modest intervals will go a long way to helping you stretch bigger intervals in the long run!
For example, remove the major third from the D major arpeggio (F♯) and put it on the top!
Therefore, you are now playing:
D - A - D - F♯ - D - A - D
The trick here is to work out suitable fingerings to make sure you hit all notes smoothly. Using the same notes as before won’t cut it because you’ve significantly increased the intervals.
For example, in the right hand you should be using 1 - 2 - 3 - 5 - 3 - 2 - 1 for the standard arpeggio (D - F♯ - A - D - A - F♯ - D).
To perform your new arpeggio without moving fingers over and under (D - A - D - F♯ - D - A - D), you may just need to use a different finger to help bridge the bigger gap, such as 1 - 2 - 4 - 5 - 4 - 2 - 1. However, you mustn’t be closed to the idea that getting used to fingers moving underneath each other is a really useful tactic too and you’ll likely get an even smoother result if you practise this way (such as 1 - 2 - 1 - 3 - 1 - 2 - 1).
Play around with the arpeggios in all different keys and tones as some of them demand more and some less, and see if you can work an exciting new technique into your performing!
Watch below for a video recap! -
Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Congleton, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.
Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!
Comments