Yes, it’s called an “arpeggio”, when you play the notes of the chord one at a time. It doesn’t usually work well with your run-of-the-mill major and minor chords, though; this one here sounds like a D9 or something like that (D-F#-A-C-E). As for how you pull it off; well, just like with everything else, practice.
Oh, it works fine with run-of-the-mill chords. See Beethoven’s 3rd movement of the Moonlight Sonata.
But, yeah, he’s doing an arpeggio of F#-C-E over and over (which, as you correctly established, outlines the three most important notes of a D9 chord.)
True, true. I still think it doesn’t happen as often as other chords, though. And, what’s happening in the 3rd movement of MS is quite different than a cadenza like this kid played (and can be heard in just about every jazz song ever).
Edited to clarify: I’m not saying arpeggios of major and minor chords don’t happen often (look at “Music Box Dancer” and the aforementioned MS for a good example of how good they can sound, OP); I’m saying for a full-out run, complete with accidental and fermata, you’re probably going to need something a little heavier from your toolbox).
Another fun arpeggio trick I learned back in the day was to just take your vanilla major chord, but approach it from the chord a half-step below it. So, if you have a G major, you come at it from the Gb. So you could play something like Gb-Bb-Db (left hand) G-B-D (right hand) up the keyboard, but more usually with inversions, so Gb-Bb-Db-G-B-D, Bb-Db-Gb-B-D-G, Db-Gb-Bb, D-G-B, etc., up the keyboard. Or, an even easier variant, is play the arpeggiated inversions in your right hand, but use your left for each chromatic leading note, so Gb-G-B-D, Bb-B-D-G, Db-D-G-B. Pretty easy even if you suck at arpeggios, but sounds kinda cool and flashy.
It is, of course, possible to play the arpeggio with just one hand. The reason you use alternating hands is to play it faster and more smoothly. Also, it looks cool. And apparently it confuses the dilettantes.
Yeah, it makes it a lot easier and looks a little showier. The classic arpeggio exercises were just going straight up the keyboard with one hand, requiring a reasonable amount of practice to get the octave transitions sounding smooth, especially if not using the damper pedal. Cascading the hands in this way gives each hand a whole three notes to get into position for the next broken chord, making it much, much easier.
I’m assuming it’s this video. Tony Banks is just playing that fluttering keyboard riff with two hands. (It’s a bit rough, if not nearly impossible, to play that with one hand.)
One of my favourite pieces is C.P.E. Bach’s “Solfeggietto”… the two hands alternate with runs and arpeggios.
Link: https://youtu.be/9rDGc69FQcY Note that up stems are right hand and down stems are left regardless of which staff they are on.
For a more grandiose example of the arpeggios he’s playing in that video, listen to the opening piano notes of the First Movement of Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto. Same idea.
I’m not a serious pianist by any stretch (I’m much more serious about singing), but I’ve been practicing/playing that piece off and on for the past 25 years. I managed to memorize a few bars at one point, but I’ve never been able to play it all the way through – let alone at tempo. Somehow, I’d never heard a recording of it until three years ago: I watched Elizabeth Joy Roe perform it on PBS’s Jazz & The Philharmonic, and said to my dog, “Holy shit! *That’s *how fast it’s supposed to be played?!? :eek:”
