Get to Know the Stepping Stones from Scales to Chords

We have taken a good bit of time lately going over chords, how to play them, how to recognize them in our music, and all of the different varieties of chords that we can play, (inversions). 

We know that learning our scales is vital to learning everything else in our piano playing and that we start learning chords very soon after we start learning and practicing our scales. 

But there's a middle step...one that we can actually call a "stepping stone" that takes us quite sneakily but successfully from scales to chords - without us even realizing it. This step is learning/playing our arpeggios!

When we learn a scale, we learn and play each note consecutively; because well, that's what a scale is. Scales teach us every note. There are no skips in the notes (in most cases). This is different from chords: chords are made up of notes that skip and aren't necessarily in a consecutive order like we have in our scales. 

So how do we bridge the differences between the two, to make it easier to glide from our scales into our chords? 

Arpeggios are played like scales, in that we play one note at a time. However, we do not play consecutive notes like we do with scales, we skip notes. Now the notes are starting to resemble chords...except they aren't played all together at one time, like chords are. 

In fact...arpeggios are chords!  We play them like we play our scales yet they aren't scales, they are "broken chords" or chords that are played one note at a time. 

The foundation for knowing and playing the notes comes from the scale itself. Yet we know that within one scale there can be any number of different chords that we can play as well. The easiest way to learn these chords is by playing the arpeggio(s) that go with each scale. 

• The neat thing is that for every different chord we have in one key (or scale), we will have an arpeggio for that specific chord as well. 

Use arpeggios to make the transition from a scale to the chords in that key/scale easier! Once you learn the notes separately, playing them together will be nothing because you already know where your fingers go from playing the arpeggio. 

In other words, don't skip this step. Learn a scale and then learn as many different arpeggios as you can for that same key. Then when you start learning and playing the chords in that key, the notes will feel very familiar and you'll find it might even be easier playing the chord than it was playing the arpeggio. 

Do you need some help with your arpeggios or need to review what you learned in the past? Here are a couple of videos that go over just about everything you need to know so you can incorporate practicing them in your own routine. 

Have fun with these and remember that arpeggios make the transition from scales to chords a lot easier!
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