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Beautifully Simple Arpeggios (Beginner Piano Lesson)

Sangah Noona, Lisa Witt  /  Arpeggios  /  UPDATED Jan 16, 2023

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Everyone loves arpeggios! They sound beautiful, impressive, and nearly every genre of piano music has them.

In this lesson, Pianote Coach Sangah Noona shows us how to play arpeggios in a brilliantly simple way. It’s so easy…but it sounds so pretty!

What’s Sangah’s secret? The answer: slash chords. Slash chords look like this on a chord chart:

Dm/C

This means: “play a Dm chord over a C.” This usually translates to playing the chord to the left of the slash with your right hand and the note to the right of the slash with your left hand.

That extra root note at the bass (which doesn’t always belong to the chord on the left of the slash) adds some extra depth to what used to be a super basic chord.

For example, Sangah plays Dm/C like this in the lesson. (Imagine the arpeggio being played from left to right).

Keyboard diagram with left hand notes highlighted in red (CFAD) with fingering and right hand notes highlighted in grey (FADFAD) with fingering.

Sangah does the same pattern with several diatonic chords in C Major:

  • Dm/C
  • Em/C
  • F/C

If you enjoyed this lesson, check out these related lessons:

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Lisa Witt has been teaching piano for more than 20 years and in that time has helped hundreds of students learn to play the songs they love. Lisa received classical piano training through the Royal Conservatory of Music, but she has since embraced popular music and playing by ear in order to accompany herself and others. Learn more about Lisa.

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