skills/instrument-ranges-and-idioms/references/piano.md

# Piano, electric piano and organ (hands)

## Registers

| Hand | Usual region | Comments |
| --- | --- | --- |
| left | C2 to C4 | bass notes below C3 are single notes or octaves, not thick chords |
| right | C4 to C6 | melody in C5 to C6 sings; above C7 only for effects |

Electric piano sounds best between E1 and E7; organ between C2 and C7 and
prefers held chords with no octave doublings.

## Hands

- Five notes per hand. Span an octave for anything that moves, a ninth for a
  held chord. No hand crossing.
- A hand stays over five to eight keys for at least a bar; shifts happen on
  long notes or rests.
- Both hands must have the same number of bars. Pad the quieter hand with
  rests, not silence.
- Chords with a wide gap between two notes in one hand (a thumb note far
  from the rest) are fine if the total span stays within a ninth.

## Left-hand patterns (pick one per example)

- Root and fifth in half notes (folk, pop ballad).
- Root-fifth-octave broken in eighths (rock, boogie).
- Alberti bass (low, high, middle, high) in eighths (classical).
- Stride: root or tenth on beats 1 and 3, chord on 2 and 4 (early jazz).
- Walking quarters (jazz), roots and chord tones with one chromatic approach
  per bar.
- Shell voicings held for the bar (root and 7th, or 3rd and 7th) while the
  right hand plays the melody (jazz comping).

## Right hand

- Melody with occasional harmony notes a third or sixth below on strong
  beats; full chords on phrase ends.
- Fast passages stay within a five-finger group or a scale pattern; a run of
  sixteenths that jumps a sixth on every beat is unplayable at tempo.
- Two-hand comping: right hand plays 3- or 4-note voicings between C4 and
  G5, left hand roots or shells; rhythmic hits on offbeats with rests, not
  every beat.

## Avoid

- Both hands in continuous sixteenths.
- Left-hand chords of four or five notes below C3.
- Octave runs in both hands at fast tempi.
- Changing the left-hand pattern every bar.