How to Speed Up Your Piano Runs

Have you ever wanted lightning fast fingers? Well in today’s lesson you will get a chance to learn how to speed up your piano runs.

Start Slow with Your Piano Runs

This is the hardest thing to do. Believe me I know because this is something I struggle with too. I know how fun it is to have your fingers running at lightning speed but before you speed it up your need to know it first. Once you have it accurately you can start to speed it up slowly with your metronome.

Fingering Rules and Consistency for Piano Runs

There is a temptation when you are playing piano runs to want to put any finger on the keys. There are, however, a couple reasons why following your fingering is important.

During a long run you need to know when to tuck your thumb under. The general rule is that your thumb should never be on a black note because it is shorter then your other fingers. The only exception to that rule is that if all your fingers are on the black keys. Then it doesn’t matter if your thumb is on the black keys.
The other thing that is important with fingering is consistency. You need to use exactly the same fingering every time that you play to avoid you accidentally tripping on the keys.

Strong Beats and Weak Beats

Music always has a strong beat and a weak beat. The loudest beat in each time signature is Beat 1. For example, in 3/4 time signature the loudest and strongest beat is Beat 1. In 4/4 time signature the strongest beat is beat 1. In fact the 1st beat will be a strong beat, beat 2 will be weak, beat 3 is medium strength and beat 4 is weak.

When you accent the same consistent beat it will actually help you get your piano runs get better. When you hand has a consistent strong beat that repeats it helps so that your fingers don’t begin to run out of control. There is nothing fun about fast fingers that begin to trip over themselves.

Changes Textures Bring Crispness to Piano Runs

One of the things that you also need to avoid is a mushy sound because your fingers are holding on too long. A great way to fix that is by changing the texture of the run by playing it staccato. Staccato is with a very crisp texture almost like a flick of the finger with a bit of a bounce in it. It will force you to slow down a bit but at the same it will also help to bring clarity to your piano runs so the sound doesn’t get too muddy.

Sectional Practice

The best thing that can help you practice more effectively overall is sectional practice. This is when you take the song and break it into tiny sections and repeat it until you feel successful. By doing this you can start to feel successful as you master little pieces of your piano run and then can add in a few notes at a time until you’ve mastered the whole section.

The Thumb Tuck

Working on developing a quick thumb tuck in you runs will help with your runs. For instance in your C Major scale in your right hand your fingering is (12312345). With the thumb tucking under F. When you tuck under your thumb you want to maintain curved fingers without flaring out your elbow and keeping your wrist straight.

The Broken Triad

The broken triads is a great technique to practice speeding up because it works on the movement of creeping the thumb along like a sideways walking crab on a beach. Working on this movement will help with a number of different run.

Arpeggios

Arpeggios are another great technique to practice and speed up. With this exercise you will be able to working on cross under your thumb but in a wider spread motion then your scales. Again with the thumb tuck make sure that you keep your wrist flat and avoid you elbow flaring out.

Chromatic Scale

Another great exercise to practice to help speed up your runs. In a chromatic progressions your finger 1 and 2 should be on your white keys and finger 3 on all your black notes. When you play your chromatic scale you are hitting every single semitone.

With all of these different exercises you should start slow and use your metronome to slowly bring up the speed. Most runs are comprised of a combination of all of these different techniques. So if you are able to speed them up it will generally speed up all your runs overall.