Estimated reading time 2 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction to “Why Do Pianists Occasionally Play Their Hands at Different Times as They Perform?”
Are you confused by the squiggly lines in the score? Have you ever wondered, “Why do pianists occasionally play their hands at different times as they perform?” Answer: because it makes the music sound sophisticated and plays an important stylistic role in piano music. Read more if you’d like to learn how it works.
This article has links to definitions of the music words used in this post, which you’ll find in the Glossary at the end.
Why Do Pianists Occasionally Play Their Hands at Different Times as They Perform: Roll Them Chords
Mobile users: for best results reading the music, tilt your screen 90o to the right.
Rolled Chord in One Hand:
Why do pianists occasionally play their hands at different times as they perform? Because the arpeggio sign in the score tells them to.
Usually, the rhythm in most music gets measured, meaning that we use counting numbers to precisely perform the music in time. However, sometimes the music will be unmeasured.
For instance, in the example above the right-hand (RH) plays arpeggios (broken chords) throughout. All the arpeggios, except the last one, will be played to a steady eighth note rhythm.
The last chord has a wavy line next to it. We call this wavy line an arpeggio sign or a rolled chord. The New Harvard Music Dictionary defines an arpeggio as, “A chord whose pitches are sounded successively, usually from lowest to highest, rather than simultaneously” (52).
In other words, the notes get played from lowest to highest very quickly with no counting involved. I like the term rolled chord, because on piano, you will do a rolling action with your wrist to get a nice quick arpeggio.
You can apply the arpeggio sign to one hand, as in the example above. Or you can use both hands to span across the two staves. You can see the arpeggio sign used this way in the last bar of the example below.
When you listen to the soundtrack, you can hear that the hands sort of line up, but not exactly. Play the lowest note of the left-hand (LH) chord first. Then, each higher note follows, first on LH and then on RH. That’s why pianists occasionally play their hands at slightly different times, because of the rolled chords.
Rolled Chord Across Two Hands:
Concluding Thoughts to “Why Do Pianists Occasionally Play Their Hands at Different Times as They Perform?”
Why do pianists occasionally play their hands at different times? Because unmeasured arpeggios sound good and work extremely well in piano music.
One final thought. An arrow on the bottom of the squiggly line tells you to play an upside down rolled chord. However, it would sound stylistically odd on piano.
This explains why, in all the years I’ve taught piano, I’ve never once seen an inverted arpeggio sign in a piano score. Nonetheless, it remains an option if you wish to explore it.
Related Content:
- How Does Your Brain Learn to Play the Piano with Two Hands?
- Ways Around the Difficulty of Playing the Piano Due to Short Fingers and Small Hands
- How to Overcome the Fear of Performing in Front of an Audience
- Why It’s So Hard for Someone with a Good Ear to Learn Sheet Music
- Why Do Minor Keys Sound Sad to Me?
- Do I Really Have to Learn Music Theory to Learn How to Play Piano?
- What Are the Small “>” Signs Above or Below the Notes?
- After They Can Sight-Read What’s Left for Musicians to Learn?
© 2023 Geoffrey Keith
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Back to the All-Purpose Music Tips and Topics category blogs page
Glossary
- Arpeggio
- Bar
- Chord
- Counting numbers
- Eighth note
- LH = Left hand
- More tips
- RH = Right hand
- Rhythm
- Rolled chord
- Score
- Staves
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