More Advanced Left-Hand Patterns with Arpeggios

Before we go on to various ways of playing the melody (in the right hand) from a fake book, we’ll look at some interesting ways the left hand can use the chord symbols to play what will accompany the melody.

Do you remember learning about arpeggios back in Chapter 13? These were the broken chords we applied to “Wonderful Tonight.” We’re now going to expand our playing of arpeggios by using open triads, which will be very useful when playing left-hand accompaniment parts.

An open triad is a triad in which the notes have been spread out, encompassing a space larger than an octave. One way to create an open triad is by moving the middle note up by one octave.

Listen to track 45 to hear the sound of open triad arpeggios on both F major and F minor chords:

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So let’s make sure we understand how these open triads are created. As you know, we would normally spell an F major triad (in root position) with the notes F–A–C, from bottom to top. In the first measure above, we have taken the middle note (or 3rd of the chord) A, and moved it up an octave. Similarly, we would spell an F minor (in root position) with the notes F–A♭ –C from bottom to top. In the second measure, the middle note of the chord (A♭ ) has been moved up an octave.

When you are comfortable with this pattern, you should then try it on as many different major and minor triads as you can (ideally in all keys), as it will be very useful on many songs! As you transpose the pattern for different chords, try not to play it too low (it will sound “muddy”) or too high (too much above the middle C area—it may get in the way of the right hand playing melody).

Next, we will explore some variations on these patterns. In the last chapter, we saw examples of chords “inverted over” (or placed over) the 3rd or the 5th in the bass. For example, the chord symbol F/A means “take an F major chord and place it over the note A in the bass.” Now we will create open triad patterns for these types of chords.

Listen to track 46 to hear the sound of open triad arpeggios for F major and F minor chords in first inversion.

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This pattern is created by taking a first inversion triad and then moving the middle note (this time the fifth of the chord, C) up by one octave. Similarly, an F minor triad in first inversion is spelled A♭ –C–F from bottom to top. So, in the second measure above, we have again taken the middle note C and moved it up an octave.

Listen to track 47 to hear the sound of open triad arpeggios for an F major chord in second inversion (F/C), and an F minor chord in second inversion (Fm/C).

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Again, this pattern is created by taking a second inversion triad and then moving the middle note (the root, this time) up by one octave. Thus, the F in both the major and minor triads gets moved up.

Again when you are comfortable with these inverted patterns, you should then try them on as many different major and minor triads as you can (ideally in all keys)!

Next, we’re going to look at some more patterns, this time for various four-part chords. These all involve playing the 7th of the chord immediately following the root. You can still use the 5–2–1 fingering, and although the larger intervals look more awkward, don’t forget that you don’t have to stretch the fingers for these larger intervals—you’ll have the sustain pedal depressed, so you can just “skip” between the notes as needed, letting go of finger 5 and moving your hand up.

Listen to track 48 to hear the sound of open arpeggios for the G7sus, G7, and Gm7 chords. Each of these patterns starts out with the root, then the 7th of the chord (in each case G up to F), followed by another chord tone as the highest note.

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• The G7sus is a suspended dominant 7th chord, where the 4th (C) has replaced the 3rd (B). The highest note in the pattern is C.
• The G7 is a dominant 7th chord, and the highest note in the pattern is the 3rd (B).
• The Gm7 is a minor 7th chord, and the highest note in the pattern is the 3rd (B♭ ).

Now let’s put these new patterns to work to help us play a pop ballad melody, working from a fake book. You’ll remember from the last chapter that a fake book chart only contains the melody and chord symbols, and it’s up to us to do the rest! Here’s a chart for a pop ballad called “Easy Going,” which we’re going to play a few different ways in this chapter.

One easy way to improvise a professional-sounding melody arrangement from a pop ballad chart is to play the melody as written on the chart with the right hand. The left hand can play simple open arpeggio patterns derived from the chord symbols.

Sounds pretty easy, huh? Well, actually it is fairly easy, if you have the left-hand patterns under your fingers, and you can keep up with the melody! As with all piano music, practice the hands separately first.

Listen to track 49 as you follow along with the music to hear a melody treatment for “Easy Going,” with left-hand open arpeggios below the right-hand melody.

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OK, so playing the right-hand part was easy enough. We just played it as written in the chart. So where did we get the left-hand patterns? Glad you asked… First of all, we divide the chord symbols into two groups: those without a slash in the chord symbol, and those with a slash in the chord symbol. If the symbol doesn’t have a slash, then the root of the chord will also be the bottom note in the open arpeggio pattern (like on tracks 45 and 48). If the symbol does have a slash, then we probably have an inverted chord (like on tracks 46 and 47). Also notice that these left-hand patterns use an eighth–eighth–quarter-note rhythm, rather than continuous eighth notes. With this in mind, we can comment on the individual pattern choices as follows:

• On the major chords in root position (C in measure 1, and F in measures 3 and 7), we have a root–5th–3rd open arpeggio.
• On the minor chords (Am7 in measures 2, 4, and 6, and Dm7 in measure 5), we again have root-5th-3rd open arpeggios.
• On the suspended dominant 7th chords (G7sus in measures 3 and 7), we have a root-7th-4th open arpeggio.
• On the major triads inverted over their 3rds (G/B in measures 1 and 6, C/E in measure 2, and E/G♯ in measure 4), we have a 3rd-root-5th open arpeggio.
• On the major triad inverted over its 5th (F/C in measure 5), we have a 5th-3rd-root open arpeggio.

So, on the slash chord symbols, you have to figure out whether the note to the right of the slash is the 3rd or 5th (or sometimes, neither) of the chord to the left of the slash, in order to apply the correct pattern. If you have all of your major and minor triads learned from Chapter 10, you should be able to do this! Otherwise, take your time and figure it out— knowing all of your triads takes time, and playing tunes from a fake book like you’re doing now is one method of gradually learning/memorizing more and more chords.

Next, we’ll apply this new left-hand technique to the classic 1990s pop ballad, “Tears in Heaven.” Notice that we have quite a few inverted chord symbols (slash chords).

Start by practicing the right-hand melody by itself. Next, play the melody along with a simple version of the left hand: only play the bass note on each chord change and hold it. This would involve playing half notes only on beats 1 and 3 of each measure (i.e., in measure 1, C on beat 1, then B on beat 3). This gets you started with the hands together. When this feels comfortable, start adding the arpeggio patterns. You can use this practice technique with all of your fake book playing.

Now that you’re getting the hang of this, look at “Tears in Heaven” and try to determine how the left-hand part was created. You can do this!

“Tears in Heaven” is one of Eric Clapton’s best-loved songs, and was written following the death of his son, Conor. The beautiful melody is complemented by the poignant lyric, expressing sadness and loss. The studio version appears on the Rush movie sound track , but it wasn’t until a live acoustic version appeared on Clapton’s 1992 Unplugged album, that the song became world-famous. This album was a refreshing contrast to the more “produced” sound from his ’80s records, and sold over seven million copies in the U.S.