First we hear a quick demonstration that the arpeggios of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier (book 1, prelude in C) form a progression of chords with wonderful voice leading.

He then plays a series of his own block chords, spread out over the right and left hand.

The chord progression evolves using different inversions of the chords, creating a melody floating on the top and a bassline on the bottom. The melody and bassline don’t ever duplicate each other, and often are moving in different directions! (I remember this idea from voice leading in Music Theory 2).

The results are lovely!

He then arpeggiates these chords several different ways. On the piano, bottom to top. On the piano, top to bottom. Then he plugs in the synth. Note that when the synth arpeggiator doesn’t quite line up with the musical phrase, he makes use of those little glitchy irregular moments.