Playing Arpeggios

What is an Arpeggio?

An arpeggio (pronounced ar-pej-ee-oh) involves simply playing the individual notes of chord. The chord is fingered as it normally is, but the notes of the chord are played individually.

How to Play Arpeggios

Once you can play chords, playing arpeggios is easy. Getting good at them, though, takes a bit more practice. The secret to remember is that arpeggios are all about your rhythm hand, and have very little to do with your lead hand. As a result, you should brainstorm ways to get creative rhythms worked out.

Below are the guidelines you need to get started:

• Finger a chord, just as you normally would. For the sake of this example, let's try the C chord.
• Now simply pick each note of the chord one by one.
• When you are picking the notes, be sure to let each note ring, so that the notes overlap each other. This is vital; if you do not do this, it will sound as though you are just playing a series of notes. As a result you will miss the extra quality that an arpeggio can add to a musical piece.

Below is a sound clip of how the C chord arpeggio would sound.

Advanced Arpeggio Techniques

The aforementioned example of playing arpeggios is simple enough. As stated earlier, though, the real value involves getting creative with your rhythm hand. If you can do this, you will open up a whole new dimension, the result of which will be the ability to make simple, common chords sound completely unique and interesting.

There is no shortcut to developing skill with arpeggios; the only legitimate road is one involving patience, practice, and discipline. Once you are comfortable with the basics of arpeggios, try the following techniques to help cultivate a sound that is personal, unique, and infectious:

• Alter the sequence of strings. Instead of playing all the notes in order -- for example, from the fifth string down to the first string -- vary the order in which you play them. For example, try playing the fifth string, then the fourth, followed by the third, second, and first.
• Alter your picking pattern. This tactic, of course, is one that you can apply to any riff to make it sound unique and personal. Play the arpeggio with all downstrokes, then just upstrokes, then alternate, then mix it up entirely. Each will produce a slightly different sound and feel, thus allowing you to choose which one is best for you depending on the musical piece you are writing and/or performing.
• Alter your rhythm. If you are just playing arpeggios, your piece will probably sound very boring if you play each note with the same rhythm. Instead, try shaking up the rhythm; hold some notes longer than others. Make some very long, make others very short.
• Integrate chord changes. Be sure to integrate chord changes into your arpeggios. First try playing the C as an arpeggio, then switch to G, followed by D, and so on. As a fun exercise, try playing a musical piece with chord changes as you normally would, with straightforward chords. Then try playing the chords as arpeggios. You'll notice it sounds like a completely different musical piece.

The video clip below shows arpeggios in action, and how they can be played once you have practiced and are comfortable with them.



The two video clips below show how arpeggios can create a rich, layered sound with minimal effort from the lead hand. The clip on the left shows the rhythm hand picking the arpeggio; the clip on the right shows the lead hand simply playing the C, A minor, F, and G chords.



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