Arpeggiating chords instead of playing block chords
Found in: Accompaniment, Arrangements & Variations
Heidi M., Canada
I have a student who recently quit for financial reasons, but now it seems she was unhappy about the Accompaniment part of the program because she feels the accompaniment part is too simple. She tells me now that she would rather run her fingers up and down the chords/arpeggios (she knows about arpeggios from previous exposure to music) than just push the RH chord in its entirety two or three times. But my sense is that SM does not encourage this, at least not at the beginning stages?
I also sense that my 8-year-old (who had previous lessons) would like to do more with her fingers than just push the chords, that she may find the playing individual notes of the arpeggio more interesting. Is it okay to introduce this at an early stage? Both of these students only had lessons with me for a few months but made great progress and I don’t want them to be bored.
About the “running your fingers up and down the chords/arpeggios” – I don’t really think it’s that difficult for the student to learn that. Before I got into SM, but when I already knew about chords, and I was not really that good at playing piano yet. The worship leader at my church asked me to be the church pianist. I totally lacked confidence but she had said “you can just run your fingers up and down the chords”. When I tried that it rapidly opened up a new exciting realm for me, and my playing and style expanded and got more interesting quickly.
I wonder if we can do this with our students in SM if we sense they are ready. So far in the curriculum I didn’t see it encouraged for beginning students. I don’t want to lose students due to being bored with the straightforward accompaniment method.
Ian M., Indiana
I think one thing Simply Music does is encourage an attitude of permission – certainly for students but also for teachers. If there’s something that you are good at, by all means teach it. If there’s something you’re not yet good at but your student wants to learn how to do, by all means figure it out and teach it.
One minor point – If there’s something you were already good at before coming to Simply Music, I think it’s probably a very valuable experience to run it through the filter of the Simply Music tools and strategies for yourself in order to begin to figure out how to teach it.
There are two arrangements of Honey Dew (HD3 and HD4) that start to get at what you’re talking about, and even if they’re not exactly what your student is after, they could provide a jumping-off point.
Swenja Z., California
You do want to require your student to play the chords in their entirety because that is the simplest way to accompany (single thought process) and you need to have the chord shape in your fingers to play arpeggios effectively. But by all means be flexible if your student wants to go beyond and play arpeggios. I actually do that with all my students and it sounds lovely.
Jeanne W., Connecticut
You should feel free to teach new accompaniment approaches (also explore patterns in the Accompaniment Variations book) when the student is ready. But learning to keep a steady beat with the simple chord-in-the-right-hand SM approach is critical to developing an established rhythmic foundation that can be used in more complex pieces. Maybe some boredom comes from not having enough challenging chord pieces. After finishing Accompaniment 1, I love moving into Get America Singing Again (available on Amazon) and right off they can play familiar folk and patriotic songs with more challenging chords added. This book offers simple to very complex chord changes and always offers the opportunity to learn and feel progress.
Sherrie A., California
What about the Arrangement program? I’ve only gone through a few of the songs but I know at least the third arrangement of Dreams is arpeggios.
Cheri S., Utah
I’m noticing that the students’ attitude may possibly mirror your own? (not to say there’s any problem with moving into arpeggios with chord shapes that are thoughtless in their hands). With the same prerequisite, you could also begin teaching Accompaniment Variations.
Robin T., China
Huge opportunity to encourage the student to improvise, I think.
Kym N., California
If you listen to some popular pop songs, the piano part is not busy at all. It’s simply a ratio providing the pulse most of the time, but it is just purely gorgeous to listen to. Busy keyboard accompaniment doesn’t sound appropriate to a song a lot of times. Running the arpeggios up and down too much can actually “kill” the mood of the song. So, it really depends on the songs.
For Honey Dew and Amazing Grace, I do introduce RH broken chords and Rockin’ Honey using only the 3-note chords when their original ones are good. I do this before introducing the Simply Music arrangements for these pieces.
With Accompaniment 1, when the students are good with the 1:1 ratio for Scarborough Fair and Light of First Dawning, I usually have them do broken chords (RH: BMT) with these songs too. I will mention to them that it will make their RH sound like the guitar picking. If the students have learned On My Way Back well, I sometimes will ask them to use the RH Rockin’ or add LH syncopation. With Scarborough Fair (in Cm), I actually ask the student to play LH moving up and down using 5th intervals, not just the single bass notes. I introduce the above styles when they can do the basic “Together – Right” or “Together – Right- Right” with the major triads which they establish from the first three sets of Amazing Grace and Auld Lang Syne.