Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Cascading, waterfall technique?

Greetings everyone,

Could someone please tell me what this effect or technique is called in this music video.

Here is the song, and the effect in question starts at 1:26. It looks like a descending C major scale with some flair thrown in. I'd be interested in learning this technique to make my morning scale practice a bit more interesting.

Thank you.

It's a descending arpeggio. I can't slow it down to individual frames to tell you what notes he's playing, but if you mess around with descending arpeggios, you'll probably be able to figure it out.

If you take the notes of the arpeggio as

Tonic third fifth tonic

Then reverse it for the downward direction,
then, it sounds to me like he's playing.

Tonic, fifth, third, fifth third tonic, third tonic fifth.

It does sound like fun, and I bet it would be of great use not only for making "homework" more fun, but also for improvising!

Way too cool. I'll definitely have to give this a try. Thank you to you both!

On the same topic of arpeggios, is it normal to have to rotate your wrist nearly 90 degrees to tuck your numb under so that it connects with the next note? I have rather small hands it seems, and that's the only way I can give my right thumb the extra reach it needs to continue upwards.

Thanks.

As long as you really mean "rotate," then yes. Your elbow should also swing pretty far out. 90 might be a little too much, because you're 3rd finger will hit the keys. But at least a comfortable 35-45, without a doubt.

If, however, you mean "twist" (where your wrist bends/breaks like you're waving "hi"), then no. That shouldn't happen.