How To Turn a Chord Into a “Cascading Waterfall Run”

It’s pretty easy to take most any chord (4 note chords are easier than 3 note chords, generally, simply because of the way your hand is constructed) and turn it into a “cascading waterfall” of sound.
For a complete course in creating piano runs, please click here: Piano Runs Galore!

There are literally TONS of things you can do to make your piano songs come to life and be far more interesting. In this short video I demonstate just three of those many ways, including a filler you can use on slower tunes as well as uptempo songs, plus a rapid-fire way of breaking up a chord into a “run”.

For a complete course in runs and fills, please go to “Piano Runs & Fills Galore!”

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There are literally hundreds (or thousands) of different ways for any piano player to make his or her songs more interesting by adding the appropriate filler and/or piano run to a song. Watch this short video where I demonstrate just a couple ways:

For a complete course in creating runs and fills go to: http://www.pianolesson.tv/

An arpeggio is one of those terms in music that sounds very impressive. If you go to your friends and tell them that you played arpeggios in your piano lesson today, they are sure to be impressed. It sounds like something complicated and difficult and our first word of advice is to let you friends think that. You’ll impress a lot of people!

Now for the secret. We music types know that an arpeggio is not a difficult concept at all. In fact, the name contains the definition. Arpeggio is an Italian word meaning broken chord. Simply speaking, when we play an arpeggio, we split a chord in to its component notes and play them individually.Let’s look at an example.

Let’s say that we play a C Major chord. You probably remember from our chord article that a simple three note C Major chord is the 1st, 3rd, and 5th scale degree of a C Major scale. In this case, a C Major scale has the notes C-E-G and they are all played at the same time. When we play an arpeggio we simply play each of these notes separately. Maybe we play 1-3-5 up and down in quarter notes. In this case, we would play 1-3-5-3-1 broken up like we would play a melody.

You might be wondering, “what’s the point of an arpeggio? Why would we bother learning these?” Your teacher will probably show you various exercises using arpeggios but here are a few reasons that they help you to be a better musician:

• If you’re a wind player, they increase the range of notes both high and low that you can play. By playing arpeggios that start in your low range and go to the top of your range, you’ll practice sounding good in all areas of your instrument.

• If you’re a string player, arpeggios help with hand positions.

• Pianists learn specific fingering patterns for various arpeggios depending on the key you are playing. Learning these different fingering patters is essential as you advance as a player.

• For any musician, in order to play an arpeggio you have to know how to spell your chords. This helps you learn and practice constructing chords.

Of course there are many other reasons that arpeggios are important but your private teacher will help you make arpeggios something that will help you to be a better musician.

Last, arpeggios don’t have to be just 1-3-5. You could play arpeggios based on any chord you can think of. You can also combine chords. For example, you could play a C Major Arpeggio as you go up and a D Major arpeggio going down. The amount of exercises and music constructed using arpeggios has no limit and if you study some of the music you play, you’ll find countless examples of arpeggios.

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Creating a piano run in your right hand usually consists of either playing a scale of some sort or a chord broken up. Listen to this short podcast by clicking on the player below as I describe how to create a rapid piano run using your right hand.

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There are about a zillion things you can do with chords so there is no need to overuse any one technique. To turn a chord into a “cascading waterfall run” you simply take any 4 note chord (you can also do it with 3 note and 5 note chords, but 4 is probably easier simply because of the way our hands are built. Start high on the piano keyboard and simply break up the notes of the chord from the top down, then move to the next inversion of the same chord and do the same, and so on until you get as far down the keyboard as you want. Watch this short video and it will be clear to you:

There are so many things you can do with chords there seems to be no limit, After playing piano for many years, I still discover things to do with chords. In this video I demonstate how you can take any 4-note chord (you can also do it with 3 and 5 note chords as well) and starting with a tremolo create a rapid run up the keyboard. But like all techniques, don’t overdo it — use it sparingly and mix it with other techniques:

Here are three ideas (out of many) for adding some piano fills and runs in your piano playing to make it fuller and more interesting. Watch the short piano lesson video below:

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Making Rapid Runs Out Of Arpeggios On The Piano