Chopin's left-hand patterns, ranked by stretch

Chopin’s left hand comes down to five accompaniment patterns. The widest is the rolling arpeggio of Op. 27 No. 2, which covers two octaves and a third inside one beat. Each span below is measured in Chopin’s own left hand in the engravings our editions are built on, lowest to highest note inside one beat’s figure.

1. Wide arpeggios, a tenth and more

Six notes to a beat that roll up through the chord and back. Op. 27 No. 2 runs D♭2 to F4 in its first beat, two octaves and a third, then starts the next beat an octave higher so the hand covers a major tenth, twelve sixteenths a bar at Lento sostenuto. Op. 9 No. 1 spreads its broken chords over an eleventh or a twelfth in most bars and reaches a major tenth from the bass to the next note in bar 5, D♭2 to F3. Op. 27 No. 1 opens on bare fifths over a twelfth and widens to two octaves and a third by bar 6. The Fantaisie-Impromptu stays inside a tenth in its outer sections, twelve notes a bar against the right hand’s sixteen at Allegro agitato.

Open the hand for the bass and close it again on every beat, and land the thumb lightly on the top note. Play each beat as one blocked chord so the grip is set, then unroll it slowly with the pedal down.

2. Octaves and chords

An octave in the bass on the beat and a chord off it, then broken octaves at speed. Op. 48 No. 1 opens with C2 and C3 under a chord that reaches G4, two octaves and a fifth above the bass, and in bar 5 the bass E♭1 sits three octaves and a third below the top of its chord; the chords themselves are an octave wide, a tenth at most. From bar 49 the theme returns twice as fast over broken octaves, six to a beat. Op. 15 No. 2 does this in bars 19–23, an octave bass sliding down C♯, C, B, A♯ under chords up to three octaves above it, and Op. 27 No. 1 goes to octaves in its loud middle.

Keep the octave grip loose and let the wrist carry it, and let the forearm move the broken octaves. Play the bass octaves alone in rhythm until they are quiet and sure, then drop the chord in as one shape.

3. Bass-chord-chord, and the waltz bass

A bass note, then a chord or two, and the hand leaps between them. In Op. 9 No. 2 and the Waltz the chord itself fits inside an octave, and in Op. 55 No. 1 it does through the first 47 bars; the leap is the work. Op. 9 No. 2 leaps from E♭2 to a chord topped by G4 in its first beat, two octaves and a third, and in the cadence bars 4, 8, 16, 24 and 28 the bass drops to B♭1 under a chord that reaches A♭4, nearly three octaves, twelve eighths a bar at Andante. In the Waltz Op. 64 No. 2 the bass sits a tenth below the top of its chord more often than any other distance, up to D♭2 to F4 in bar 65. Op. 55 No. 1 alternates bass and chord on the quarter, two octaves apart in bar 1 and two octaves and a fifth over the C pedal in bars 20 and 36.

Leap, land the chord as one shape, and keep the bass as the downbeat. Go from bass to chord and stop, eyes shut, until the hand finds the chord by feel, then add the second chord.

4. Broken chords within the octave

A bass note, then eighth notes that stay inside one octave. Op. 32 No. 1 rocks between F♯3 and F♯4, eight eighths a bar at Andante sostenuto, and only the bass on the downbeat leaves the position (B1 in bar 1); bars 5–7 open into rising broken chords over two octaves. The outer sections of Op. 15 No. 2 do the same in 2/4, C♯2 under a figure that stays between C♯3 and B3 in bar 1.

Keep an even, quiet pulse, and send the fifth finger to the bass without the hand following it. Hold the chord tones down as a block and play only the bass line, then release the block one finger at a time.

5. Repeated chords sliding by half step

Three-note chords repeated in eighths, eight to a bar at Largo, that change one note at a time and sink by half steps. That is the left hand of the Prelude Op. 28 No. 4: the chord sits inside a sixth or a seventh, an octave at most, and the hand hardly moves until the climax in bar 17 puts an octave B in the bass under a four-note chord.

Repeat the chord at one level, without a swell, and voice the note that moved. Play the chords as whole notes first, one per change, and name the note that moved, then repeat them in eighths at the softest level that still speaks.

Learn the chords before the pattern

Every pattern above is a chord spread out in time. Our edition prints that chord as one root-position block under the right hand exactly as Chopin wrote it, with the chord symbol above and the roman numeral below, so you learn the progression first and then lay Chopin’s pattern over chords the hand already knows. In Op. 27 No. 2 the arpeggios hide a progression that holds D♭ for four bars and moves through E♭ø⁷, E♭m⁷ and C°⁷ to A♭⁷; play those as blocks first and the sixteenths are chords you can already name. In Op. 9 No. 2 the leaps cover a chord a beat in bar 3, B♭⁷, G⁷, Cm, A°⁷, and knowing the chord before the leap is what makes the leap land.

Every nocturne

Each hand is rated on its own in the nocturnes ranked by difficulty.