[Metal Ken]

Basic Arpeggio Construction for Simple Sweep Arpeggios.

The first thing to know is that an arpeggio isnt just a guitar technique. Its basically just a chord whose notes are played individually. its just that the great shred players took it to another level to create very melodic solo lines and whatnot. In essence, its just playing a lot of chords really fast with individual notes. Well, we've all seen the basic sweep arpeggio lessons on the internet with the same old shapes and whatnot. How do you make your own though? and how do they fit together? We'll see.

We'll start out with a basic chord. C Major. Our chord is constructed (For chord construction, see previous post).
So our notes, then are C, G, and E. well, we can play that a number of ways. We can:

Tap it:
E-t15p8h12-t15p12p8-------
B-------------------------
G-------------------------
D-------------------------
A-------------------------
E-------------------------
B-------------------------

That is basically, a 1 string arpeggio. Easy,right?

Well, we can make it a bit different. Here it is as a 2 string arpeggio.


E-15p12---15p12-----------
B------13------13---------
G-------------------------
D-------------------------
A-------------------------
E-------------------------
B-------------------------


3 string:

E-----------12h15---------
B---------13--------------
G------12-----------------
D---10--------------------
A-------------------------
E-------------------------
B-------------------------

Pretty straight foward concept. you just basically link the notes of a triad. To utilize our favorite instruments, take a look at one of my favorite arpeggios, the 7 string Minor shape(just one of many 7 string minor shapes though):


E-----------------13h17t22p17p13-----------------------------
B---------------15--------------15---------------------------
G-------------14------------------14-------------------------
D----------15-----------------------15-----------------------
A-----12h17---------------------------17p12------------------
E---13-------------------------------------13----------------
B-15-----------------------------------------15--------------

If you notice, its a cycle of the same 3 notes -- D, F,A,D,F,A,D,F,A....

The cool thing about arpeggios is you can click them together really easy to form a chord progression.This is very useful when actually soloing over a chord progression because your chosen notes are guaranteed to fit. You can also cram a lot of them together for some neat solo runs. Take a look at this:


E-7p3----3h7s8----5s10p7---7--12-8--------12------------
B-----5-5-----7-7-------8-8---------10--10----------------
G------4-------5---------7-------------9-------------------
D-----------------------------------------------------------
A-----------------------------------------------------------
E-----------------------------------------------------------
B-----------------------------------------------------------

Its just an E Minor, F# half diminished, G Maj, and A minor. Just chained together.

A Lot of people like to just use one big arpeggio shape after another, which can sound a bit repetitive. Whats really cool to do, is use them Francesco Fareri style - that is, to change the arpeggio as you run up the fret board in a progression.

It works best when the chords are have at least one similar note. Lets take an Aminor, C Majr, E Minor progression. This will work really well, cause the A Minor chord is made of an A , a C, and a E note. A C Majr is a C E G, and a E Minor, thats E G B. They'll fit together very nicely.

Amin C Maj E Minor
E--------|------|7-12-7---------------------
B--------|----8-|------8--------------------
G--------|5-9---|--------9------------------
D-------7|------|---------9-----------------
A-----7--|------|-----------10-7------------
E-5-8----|------|---------------------------
B-------------------------------------------

These take a bit of work and plan and get to down to a science, so they're not exactly something to start off with, and the fignerings can get weird as hell.. But these are definately the coolest part of doing arpeggios.

I encourage everyone to ask questions, it'll make this more complete and clear up anything that might be confusing

[sixpounder]

Cool stuff, but your 3-stringer is on 4 strings.

[wild_bill]

Originally Posted by HateBreeder

Basic Arpeggio construction (For simple sweep arpeggios)

I was bored so i thought i'd do a basic colum for people to see how to create and apply arpeggios (hey, its the lesson forum and im the mod, i got a standard

I have a question. Does the arpeggio always have to be the same as the chord being played? I think I heard Yngwie say he uses diminished arpeggios to connect two other arpeggios, but he didn't say what kind of diminished - whole or half, and what ones he was connecting.

[Metal Ken]

The arpeggio IS a chord.
Yng usually uses straight up dimished, ascending or descending in minor 3rds.

[wild_bill]

Originally Posted by HateBreeder

The arpeggio IS a chord.
Yng usually uses straight up dimished, ascending or descending in minor 3rds.

I guess what I'm really asking is since the arpeggio is just notes from the scale, take two different arpeggios with the same root, say Am and Am7. Could either of these be played over an A5 chord, since both obviously have the root and fifth? IOW, can any arpeggio be played over a 5 chord as long as the root and fifth is the same? Would a diminished arpeggio with the same root work over a power chord?

[Metal Ken]

yeah. You play an A5, and any A (A, A7, Am7, A6, Am, Am9,etc,etc,etc).. would work. The dimished A would be dissonant, cause the ADim, is 1 3b 5b.. (flat 5 and a 5 cause tension)

[wild_bill]

Originally Posted by HateBreeder

yeah. You play an A5, and any A (A, A7, Am7, A6, Am, Am9,etc,etc,etc).. would work. The dimished A would be dissonant, cause the ADim, is 1 3b 5b.. (flat 5 and a 5 cause tension)

Ok, thanks for the info. Books never really explain those kinds of details.

[wild_bill]

Originally Posted by HateBreeder

yeah. You play an A5, and any A (A, A7, Am7, A6, Am, Am9,etc,etc,etc).. would work. The dimished A would be dissonant, cause the ADim, is 1 3b 5b.. (flat 5 and a 5 cause tension)

I was looking through my scale books and I noticed one modification. There are a couple of modes of the diminished scale which are compatible with major and minor chords.

[Metal Ken]

Yeah, those are Half Dimished. Also, you can get some tritones w/ minor 3rds to sound good over a minor scale as well. You just gotta mess around a bit.

[jaredowty]

This is like, a year late...but what fingerings do you recommend for the 7 string Dm shape? I'm having trouble finding ones where I don't get crammed up.