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E Major Piano Arpeggios
The E major arpeggio is built from the notes E, G-sharp, and B, with G-sharp the only black key. Let’s look at it in root position and both inversions, and then extend it over more octaves.
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E Major arpeggio overview
The E Major arpeggio in root position
The E major arpeggio is easier to organize as a chord than as a run of separate notes. Each hand has one shape that it learns once and then carries up or down the keyboard, octave after octave.
We call that shape the core position: the group of notes that repeats exactly as the arpeggio travels. Once the core position is clear, most of what is left is moving it from one octave to the next.
In root position, the arpeggio starts and ends on E. The core position in the right hand is E-G-sharp-B with fingers 1-2-3 (red on the chart below), and in the left hand it is G-sharp-B-E with fingers 3-2-1 (blue on the chart). At the bottom of the left hand and the top of the right hand, the 5th finger is added to play the first or last note. These 5th fingers sit outside the core positions (green on the chart), so it helps to think of them as bookends for the arpeggio.
The E Major arpeggio in first inversion
In first inversion, the arpeggio starts and ends on G-sharp, the third of the chord. The core position in the right hand is B-E-G-sharp with fingers 1-2-4 (red), and in the left hand it is G-sharp-B-E with fingers 3-2-1 (blue). The left hand needs no extra note: it starts directly in its core position, with the 3rd finger on G-sharp. The right hand begins with a lead-in (green): G-sharp on finger 4, the same finger that note has inside the core position. At the top, the right hand turns around on the 4th finger rather than the 5th.
The E Major arpeggio in second inversion
In second inversion, the arpeggio starts and ends on B, the fifth of the chord. The core position in the right hand is B-E-G-sharp with fingers 1-2-4 (red), and in the left hand it is E-G-sharp-B with fingers 3-2-1 (blue). Once again, the 5th fingers stay outside the core positions as bookends (green).
To practice the core positions, it helps to break the arpeggio into three steps:
- Block out the core positions and play them up and down the keyboard in clusters. This makes the arpeggio easy to see as a single unit of notes that repeats up and down the keyboard.
- Play up and down the arpeggio one note at a time, but hold the notes down as we go and pause once each core position is fully down. Then aim and hop to the next core position, placing the hand on all of its notes at once.
- Play up and down one note at a time, releasing each finger as the next one plays (legato touch), while keeping the core positions in mind as we travel up and down the piano.
Expand the E Major arpeggio to more octaves
Extending the E major arpeggio to four octaves doesn’t change any of the fingering. We start one octave lower, finish one octave higher, and the core positions simply repeat in between. If two octaves already feel reliable, the longer version is mostly a matter of keeping the arm moving with the hand. The green notes appear only at the very beginning and the very end; everything in between is the core position. On the four-octave staff, the fingering is written only where the hand moves to a new position.
Avoid common mistakes in the E Major arpeggio
A few mistakes and challenges belong especially to the E major arpeggio:
- Hand too far out: With G-sharp on a black key, the hand has to sit a little further into the keys than it would for an all-white arpeggio. If the hand stays out at the front edge, the finger on G-sharp has to reach forward on every repetition, and the line gets uneven. Letting the whole hand settle in, so the fingertips sit near where the black keys begin, removes that reach.
- The thumb stays on white keys: The thumbs play only the white keys here, E and B, so every position change lands on a white key. Knowing in advance which white key the thumb is aiming for makes the passing under much more secure.
- Starting fingers: In first inversion, the arpeggio does not start with the right-hand thumb and the left-hand 5th finger: the right hand begins on G-sharp with the 4th finger and the left hand with the 3rd. Out of habit, the hand tends to reach for the thumb anyway, and then the whole fingering is shifted by one note. Placing both hands on their first notes deliberately, before playing anything, prevents that.
Other techniques related to E major piano arpeggios:
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