Jumping around the keyboard can seem daunting at first. It is all too easy to panic, tighten joints and rush as you make repeated attempts to move even the shortest of distances by lifting off the keyboard and changing position. But reliability can be developed so long as you reman patient and take time in your practice sessions. As with so many aspects of piano technique, speed and stress are the main obstacles to success. In order to avoid long-term frustration, it is important to work at leaps calmly. If a leap feels uncomfortable, then find the speed at which you can play it with ease. Take all the time in the world. As you jump, strive for a sense of physical control and pleasure. Be mindful of the moment as you play. Celebrate and enjoy physical pyrotechnics as you navigate your way over the keyboard’s topography!

Of course, there are basic principles that need to be remembered for leaps. In general, single-note leaps work best when you use the same finger for each note. Of course, there are exceptions to this, mainly concerning musical rhetoric and the emphasis of specific notes in phrasing.

But whatever finger you use, it is important to feel in control. Aiming to arrive on the note earlier than necessary can make all the difference – even if we are talking about a split second of extra time for security. Cultivating a relaxed, healthy posture is another useful prerequisite to remember. Avoid stiffening your wrists. Work from a natural, easy and comfortable standpoint. Good posture and a sense of peace will lead to confidence and eventually to consistent security, provided that your practice includes a sizeable amount of repetitive work in which healthy movements are utilised.

(Don’t) Look before you leap!

Along with a healthy set-up, blind practising will lead to confidence and control if done regularly. Inexperienced players often get flustered simply by looking too closely at their fingers, and then forgetting the music. They panic as they try to look down at their hands and up at the score simultaneously. This is one of the main reasons why it is important to cultivate short-term memory for keyboard jumps. Work with your eyes closed. Be patient and repeat individual jumps that are challenging calmly without looking. Take as many repetitions as you need in order to feel really comfortable. So often it is a jump in the middle of a busy texture that causes all the problems of execution. By isolating the jump, you are saving considerable time.

Hard-wire

From the above it is clear that success with leaps depends on your ability to nurture control without thinking about it. You need to take whatever time is necessary in order to ‘hard-wire’ pianistic navigations. Through daily repetitions your body will develop an instinctive coordination. If you practise all your challenging position changes and jumps in isolation, your body will learn how to move securely on to the correct note(s). It may be helpful to use a pencil and mark in with square boxes where each challenging leap occurs. This will prevent you from fumbling to find what you are looking for each time you sit down to practise! But don’t necessarily start with sounds; move your fingers silently over the keys, getting used to physical movements in isolation. When this feels easy, close your eyes and continue repetitions, keeping the first note(s) silent but playing out loud the second note(s). Once this becomes comfortable you can continue work by playing both notes for real.

Aesthetic pleasure and connecting the line

Try to make leaps feel coordinated and shaped into single gestures rather than separate movements. If you play the first note of a leap and then start to try and move on to the second note there will be less physical grace and comfort than if you view the execution of the first note as the start of the jump itself. Play/leap in a spring-like movement on to the higher or lower note(s) in question. Feel a single gesture as you execute the movement. In your practice you can repeat the movement as often as possible. Again, it may well prove useful to shadow leaps in passages where there are many jumps so that you are not distracted or discouraged by the sounds of near misses as you play. This approach is so helpful with phrasing, enhancing continuity and a sense of musical flow.

Let’s continue with specific approaches to leaps that can be considered separately, even if they all share the principles outlined so far.

Jump practice

Many teachers recommend so called ‘jump practice’. This is a trigger movement that is best worked through repetition of the leap as fast as possible. Play the first note(s) and then leap from this and land silently over the second note(s). Free yourself from unnecessary tension while ensuring that you move as economically as possible. Aim for a horizontal movement across the keyboard in the manner of a spring. It is worth taking time to practise basic exercises with this ‘spring’ movement, with each hand separately then together. Work with all combinations of notes in single, double and chordal forms. Example 1 gives some useful possibilities for exploration.

Example 1 –Practise jumps with both single notes and chords

Waves

The shape you make with your wrists can have a significant impact on both the quality of sound you produce and the ease with which the leap is executed. If you wish to produce an aesthetically beautiful leap movement that exudes elegance and effortless élan then wave shapes are strongly recommended. Relax your arm completely, lift slowly upwards from the first note(s) with a totally free wrist, and draw a rainbow shape in the air. Experiment with low and high arch shapes as you practise.

Wave shapes are especially good to strengthen a sense of unity and connection in phrasing. When you have an expressive intervallic leap, say in a Chopin nocturne, you should strive at all costs to sonically join the two notes together. The decay of the first note should dovetail effortlessly into the beginning of the second. Use of the sustaining pedal can and indeed should help in this context, but the use of relaxed wave movements will add an sense of poise and physical inevitability as the two notes are connected. The bigger the interval, the larger the arch shape will be. Practise moving from one interval to the next with the same finger for each note, then with different fingers. Use pedal and experiment with possibilities similar to those offered in Example 2.

Example 2 – Practise leaps over increasingly wide intervals using the pedal to join the notes

Staples

If you are required to play percussive music and/or need the firmest articulation possible then the wave approach to leaps may not necessarily work best. For strength, tonal definition and clarity try outlining the shape of a staple as you move from one tone or chord to another. Lift upwards from the first note, then move either left or right in the air, and descend directly on to the next note. In preparing this ‘staple’-shape leap movement, it may be helpful to shadow notes rather than play them out loud. Personally, I find the staple shape leap movement extremely helpful in numerous excerpts from sonatas by Prokofiev. The extensive jumps in both the second and fourth movement of the Second Sonata in particular seem much more reliable and articulate when this movement, rather than wave shapes, is utilised.

Arpeggios as leaps

Though legato arpeggios with physical overlaps between notes are out of consideration here, there are many instances when changes of position in arpeggio patterns will necessitate lifted hands. Indeed, many players are able to produce beautiful legato in arpeggios with subtle lifts between position changes. If you want to develop this technique, as well as non-legato, leggiero and staccato arpeggios, then it is important to practise position changes as though they are leaps. In 18th-century repertoire this is particularly helpful. Example 3 (below) comes from the second half of Scarlatti’s D minor Sonata, Kk141. The articulation added is only a suggestion, but in order for it to be convincing you need to be confident in changing position (‘leaping’) between the notes in each box marked on the score.

In this context, leaps have to be hidden from the listener as much as possible! Aim for invisible pianism with effortless elegance. It is especially important not to place unwanted accents on the second notes in these arpeggiated leaps. Strive for a seamless stream of sound, regardless of articulation, and be especially careful when using thumbs, as these can easily become too heavy.

Example 3 – Scarlatti Sonata in D minor, Kk141

Some tricks of the trade

There are specific techniques – ‘tricks’ if you like – that might be useful. First, remember that what you allow your brain to prioritise can have significant impact on the success of leaps in performance. If your right hand is jumping around like wildfire while your left hand is playing the main melody, focusing on the left hand rather than the leaps will (ironically) often make the jumps more successful. There are many examples in the music of Liszt that could be cited to support this assertion.

Second, if you are jumping on to the fifth finger, it can be helpful to in effect shorten the leap and stabilise the manoeuvre by adding a thumb note to an octave below. I joke with students by referring to this as my ‘phantom of the octave’ technique. As well as being useful for practising, added octaves can be invaluable in performance, adding extra richness to the texture in a manner that audiences will not consciously be aware of. This can clearly be seen in Example 4, from the third movement of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, D760.

Example 4 – Schubert Wanderer Fantasy, D760, third movement

Finally, mind over matter: quite often a change of perspective can make all the difference to your playing. If you play the passage in Example 5 thinking of it as a sequence of rising tenths, it will appear awkwardly onerous. Rethink it, after isolating the first note, as a series of descending octaves, and it morphs into an easy passage. As such this is a symbol for prioritising thoughtful pianism as a vital means of making technical headway. IP

Example 5 – Falling octaves or rising tenths? Be creative in your mental approach

This feature originally appeared in the SPRING 2025 issue of International Piano