“Arpeggio” is a term musicians use to describe playing the notes of a chord in a certain sequence. Arpeggios are basic musical elements that appear frequently throughout a wide variety of music. With respect to music performed on the the guitar, the arpeggio lies at the core of multi-textural forms. It is also one of the foundational techniques that will build a guitarist’s right-hand technique from the ground up.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/embed/ZjDJAy3hLxQ[/youtube]In this lesson, you will learn some basic arpeggios with various fingering combinations. These are just a few examples that we have selected from the elementary level to give you an idea of the great variety even at that level. The arpeggios we cover here are based on the fingerings p-i-m, p-m-i., p-i-m-a, (p+i)-m-a, and (p+m)-i-a. For example, the first arpeggio is a p-i-m arpeggio with bass note alternation. The notation “+” in (p+i)-m-a is a musical shorthand that tells the guitarist to will pluck both p and i on their respective strings at the same time–simultaneously.
Here is the sheet music for the chords that are arpeggiated in this lesson:
When you work on arpeggios, keep the left hand as simple as possible so you can focus on the right-hand arpeggios themselves.
As your technique develops, we’ll look at more complex arpeggio forms, which in turn will develop your right-hand technique even further. Your sight reading skills will also improve gradually as we cover more complex textures.
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