A Tatum Run that's fun and easy to play
Art Tatum is known for his incredible virtuosity. His runs are dazzling. However, there's a secret to them. There is a direct correlation between how easy it is to move around the keyboard and his note choices. In other words, with the correct fingering, they're quite easy to play, assuming one has the finger agility to play them fast.
In this post, I will introduce you to one of those runs. I never attempted to transpose it to a different key because doing so would have been counterproductive to its design.
The run is relatively easy to play even at high speed because it considers the layout of the black-and-white keys.
The architecture of the run
- The most important thing to notice is that the fingering is constant—it's always 4321.
- The second important thing is that the fourth finger and the second finger are always on black keys. Fingers one and three, on the other hand, are always on white keys.
- The fourth finger is playing all the Black Keys one at a time in a descending motion.
- The other three notes of each group of four notes are less concerned with conforming to a scale or harmony than making it easy for the fingers to move with ease.
This might be a good time to watch my under-a-minute video about this run. It is very inspiring.
Getting creative with it
As jazz improvisers, we want to be creative with everything we learn. And runs are no different. There's a lot we can do with this run. For example, instead of having the fourth finger play the Black Keys consecutively, we can jump around, as shown in the image below.
