1. Hear the chord behind the pattern
Purpose: distribute chord tones across time while retaining their harmonic identity, pulse, and balance. A broken chord need not travel across several octaves; the order of a few nearby tones can create a recognizable accompaniment.
Block the first three different pitches in each bar to hear the underlying chord, then restore the written sequence. Both bars are C major. The changed starting position and order do not create a new harmony.
Read the fingering separately for each hand. In RH, the first bar uses 1–3–5–3 and the second 1–2–5–2. LH uses 5–3–1–3 in both bars. These are short closed-position patterns, not a requirement to preserve those fingers when extending into an arpeggio.
Count two eighth notes per beat. Keep the repeating highest note from becoming an automatic accent. Practice one hand at a time and release the shape between attempts instead of holding a chord grip while the fingers work.
Change the contour, keep the harmony
Compare C–E–G–E with C–G–E–G. The latter uses lowest–highest–middle–highest, the familiar Alberti order. Play the two patterns at the same pulse and volume. The following page puts that order beneath a slower melody.
Checkpoint: you can name the chord before playing the pattern and can change its order without changing the beat.
2. Keep the accompaniment below the melody
Purpose: maintain an even repeating pattern while hearing a slower melody above it. Broken chords can change the order of chord tones without traveling across several octaves. The Alberti pattern below repeats lowest–highest–middle–highest: C–G–E–G.
The LH uses 5–1–3–1. Its thumb plays often, but those notes should not automatically become accents. The RH plays E–D–C as half notes and a whole note. This is an original preparation study, not a quotation from a sonata.
Put the layers together
- Play the LH alone at two eighth notes per beat. Listen through every repeated G; keep its volume even.
- Play the RH alone and sing its three-note line. Plan how the phrase settles on C.
- Play one measure hands together, with the melody clearly above the accompaniment.
- Join both measures. Sustain the final RH C for its full value while the LH continues underneath it.
Begin without pedal. If the melody becomes hard to hear, reduce the LH volume before trying to make the RH louder. Keep the beat steady at the moment the melody changes; a long melody note is not a pause in the accompaniment.
Change one variable
After the printed pattern is secure, change only the LH order to C–E–G–E, using 5–3–1–3, while retaining the RH notes and rhythm. The harmony stays C major, but the accompaniment’s contour changes. Restore the Alberti order and compare the sound.
Checkpoint: you can sing the RH line while playing both hands, and the LH neither stops nor swells at each RH entrance. If this fails, practice one beat at a time or return to separate hands.
Repertoire connection: revisit the Bach BWV 846 excerpt in Melody over accompaniment. Its broken chords distribute notes differently and include sustained tones. Identify the notes that must remain held before applying the same listening goal. A broken-chord texture is not permission to shorten every note to the next attack.
3. Change harmony without disturbing the melody
The RH moves E–F–D–C, one note every two beats. Each four-note LH group supplies a new harmony: C major, F major, G major, then C major. The G shape begins on B in the bass, making that group’s complete harmony G/B, or first-inversion G major.
Prepare one boundary at a time
Block each LH group to hear the progression. Then restore the eighth notes, checking the changes from G to C at the first boundary, A to B at the second, and G to C at the third. These are the last-to-first notes between groups, not the roots of all the harmonies.
Play the LH alone until the first note of each group arrives on its beat. Add only the RH attacks, sustaining each half note for its full value. The melody’s change must not cause a gap or a louder thumb in the accompaniment.
Begin without pedal. Once the changes and balance are clear, try pedal appropriate to the harmony and listen for remnants of the previous chord. Detailed pedal timing belongs to the pedaling chapters; it should not disguise an uncertain change of position here.
Toward wider textures
When a broken chord spans more than a comfortable closed shape, allow the hand to travel rather than holding every note’s position at once. Identify which notes the score requires to remain sustained and which can release. The arpeggio and wide-figure chapters develop that movement across larger ranges.
Checkpoint: the listener can follow the RH line, recognize the harmonic changes, and hear an uninterrupted accompaniment pulse.