By John McCarthy
Arpeggio Basics
What
is an arpeggio? It sounds hard….seems like a lot of work…These are some of the
responses I get from students when I say let’s learn to play arpeggios today.
What
I am going to do is make it as painless as possible to get started on the
arpeggio express and give you all the information needed to start playing them
today. You’ll see that it isn’t as hard as you thought.
Let’s
start with the origin of the word, arpeggio stems from the Italian word, arpeggiare, to play the harp, and from arpa, harp, of German origin.Arpeggios were commonly used in classical music
throughout history. By definition “arpeggio” means “The sounding of the tones
of a chord in rapid succession rather than simultaneously”. Now let’s get into
the fun stuff and play some music!
Fret
the “A” Minor bar chord in Figure 1
by just fretting the black notes. Now go
to Figure 2 and play the notes of the
pattern one at a time, remembering not to hold down any notes. Good news…you
just played an “A” Minor ARPEGGIO! Pretty simple, isn’t it? Now don’t get me
wrong, there are many ways to play “arps” that may take months to master, but
we’ll save those for later.
 |
| Figure 1 |
 |
| Figure 2 |
Most
guitarists think of Arpeggios as a 80s technique that was found ripping through
almost every guitar solo. Contrary to
popular conception, Arpeggios have a much broader spectrum of use.
First
I’ll go through exactly what an Arpeggio is, and then Iet’s explore the many
Arpeggio uses. I’m sure you’ll be spicing up your playing with a little dose of
Arpeggio in no time.
Definition: An Arpeggio is the notes of a chord picked
out separately. So let’s say you have a
“D” Major chord. The notes that make
that chord are D-F#-A (don’t be confused if you didn’t know that. I will go through how to find the names of
the notes for chords in a future lesson).
So, if I play the notes D-F#-A separately in succession it would be a
“D” Major Arpeggio.
Now
for this lesson I’m going to show you three Major and minor Arpeggios and the
chords that they are formed from. Remember
in the chord charts the black dots are the chord while the white dots are the
notes we add to make a complete Arpeggio. These are probably the most common
Arpeggios used. First, I’ll show you the
chord, then the Arpeggio that is created from it.
Make
sure to memorize these arpeggios and practice them with alternate because in
part 2 we’ll delve deeper into creating your own Arpeggios, but for now sink
your teeth into these.
Bon
appetite!
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