Arpeggios

Practicing arpeggios on the Guitar

An arpeggio is a broken chord; a chord where the notes are played in sequence, one after the other, rather than simultaneously.  Arpeggios are important tools for performing, composing and improvising music.  Along with scales they should be a daily part of a guitarist’s practice routine.  Developing the ability to play and understand arpeggios and the theory behind them will help you learn the fretboard and build the knowledge of the notes that belong to each chord.  Practicing them will also improve your technique and finger dexterity and train your ear to hear chord tones.

One way to practice arpeggios is to play all the diatonic arpeggios of a particular key in a position of the guitar neck.  For example, in the 5th position, in the key of F major, the diatonic triad arpeggios (in order, from low to high) are:

Am: A   C   E   (6th and 5th strings)

Bb:      Bb  D  F    (6th and 5th strings)

C:  C   E   G    (6th, 5th and 4th strings)

Dm: D   F   A     (5th and 4th strings)

Edim:   E  G   Bb   (5th and 4th strings)

F:  F   A   C    (5th, 4th and 3rd strings)

Gm:     G   Bb  D  (4th and 3rd strings)

Am: A   C   E    (4th, 3rd and 2nd strings)

Bb:      Bb  D  F    (4th, 3rd and 2nd strings)

C:  C   E   G    (3rd and 2nd strings)

Dm: D   F   A    (3rd , 2nd and 1st strings)

Edim:   E  G   Bb   (2nd and 1st strings)

F:  F   A   C     (2nd and 1st strings)

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