Arpeggios And The Blues Introduction When it comes to playing the guitar there are a few topics that seem to cause confu- sion and get asked about over and over again. One of those is arpeggios...”What are they and how do I use them?” In this report I hope to put an end to the confusion about arpeggios and provide you with framework to know exactly how you can use them to become a better guitarist. So what exactly is an arpeggio? It’s simply the notes of a chord played one at a time. How do you use them? You use them as a guide in your solos. As you will see and hear, not all of the notes in a scale work against the chord that is being played, but the arpeggio notes will always work because they are the notes in the chord. Put another way...suppose you are crossing a stream by walking on rocks from one side to the other. The problem, the rocks are just under the surface of the water, you can’t see them. The easiest way to cross would be to have a guide to show you where the rocks are located. That way you stay safe and dry. Arpeggios function exactly the same way, they are your guides that keep you safe by targeting the better sounding notes and avoiding the notes that “sound off.” I have decided to use the blues to demonstrate this in action for a couple of reasons. 1. The blues is a very popular form of music and has a broad appeal. 2. The blues is also the basis for thousands of rock and pop tunes. This should give you a good working foundation and starting point to continue your progress as a guitarist. My hope is that you will be inspired to take the ideas presented here and run with them. It is my belief that a good working knowledge of arpeggios is the foundation from which you should build in order to play better lead guitar, even more important than scales. In fact, with a good working knowledge of arpeggios you can play a solo over any song in any style without ever playing a scale. Let’s get started... © 2012 Bob Murnahan - All Rights Reserved www.leadguitartactics.com Page 4 Arpeggios And The Blues 2 Ways To Play An Arpeggio As I mentioned in the introduction, an arpeggio is simply the notes of a chord played one at a time. There a 2 ways to approach this. The first way is used in rhythm guitar playing and occurs when you hold a chord shape and play the strings individually as opposed to a strum. Take the following C barre chord as an example. 8th 1 1 2 3 3 I can play it and skip every other string like this...                         8 8 8 8 9 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10  8 8 Notice that this is the notes of the chord played one at a time but the notes ring out and overlap. And even though this is “arpeggiating the chord,” it is typically not how you would apply arpeggios in a solo. When using arpeggios is a solo the approach is slightly different as you will see. But, you can use the chord shapes like the one above as a visual aid to help you out. © 2012 Bob Murnahan - All Rights Reserved www.leadguitartactics.com Page 5 Arpeggios And The Blues To demonstrate the second way to play an arpeggio and how arpeggios apply to solo- ing, we are going to be using a blues in the key of C. The 3 chords that are typically found in a C blues are C7 (the I chord), F7 (the IV chord), and G7 (the V chord). Every chord that you can think of is comprised of certain notes. To really understand how chords are constructed requires a basic understanding of music theory. A com- plete study of music theory is highly recommended if you are interested. In the meantime, I have included a small report with this course to help you get started with the basics. The I Chord The C7 chord contains the notes C, E, G and Bb. So, it stands to reason that if I want to play a C7 arpeggio, it would be made up of those 4 notes. Here is a possible finger- ing for the C7 arpeggio starting on the C at the 8th fret, 6th string. C7 Arpeggio C7 Chord 7th 1 7th 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 4 3 3 4                        8 12 8 8 11 11 8 9 9 8 10 10 8 7 10 10 7  8 8 © 2012 Bob Murnahan - All Rights Reserved www.leadguitartactics.com Page 6 Arpeggios And The Blues When you look at the 2 diagrams above notice that the C7 chord shape is inside of the fingering for the C7 arpeggio. You can use the chord shapes as a visual aid to help learn and memorize the arpeggios. Contrasting The C7 Chord And The C Pentatonic Scale As I mentioned in the intro and on the video, not every note in a scale works against certain chords, even though they are in the same key. The chord tones (arpeggio notes) will always work because they are the same note that are in the chord. The remaining notes will create varying degrees of tension depending on a couple of different factors. Some notes can be considered extensions of the chord like a 9th or a 13th. Other notes just really don’t work well at all. Register has a big effect on the amount of tension created too. Notes that are lower in pitch tend to clash more that notes that are higher in pitch. In the end, you have to decide if you like the way certain notes sound against the chord. There are no hard and fast rules to follow, only guidelines. It’s completely sub- jective so let your ears be the guide. The following chart shows the notes of the C pentatonic scale and the C7 arpeggios side by side to help you see the differences. 1 b3 3 4 5 b7 C Pent. Scale C Eb F G Bb C7 Arpeggio C E G Bb The first thing to notice is the overlap. The C pentatonic scale contains 3 notes that are also found in the C7 chord...C, G and Bb. That means that the remaining 2 notes, the Eb and F are the potential trouble spots. Exercise 1 A great exercise you can use to hear how these notes sound is against each chord is to play the notes of the scale and the chord slowly against a backing track. As you move through one note at a time you will be able to determine for yourself how each note works against the chord. Pay attention to the amount of tension or lack thereof created by each note. Especially © 2012 Bob Murnahan - All Rights Reserved www.leadguitartactics.com Page 7 Arpeggios And The Blues the notes that are not part of the chord (Eb and F). I demo this for on the video. Be sure to use the provided backing track and do this for yourself too! Sometimes a note that is not part of the chord can still sound great. In the blues the b3 is a perfect example. In isolation, this note would be considered a wrong note against the I chord. But in the blues, we have heard that sound so many times that our ear accepts is as being OK. In fact, the b3 is one of the “blue notes” that help define and make the blues what it is. As I said earlier, you have to let your ears be your guide. It’s all subjective. The IV Chord The F7 chord consists of the notes F, A, C and Eb. Here are the diagrams and tab for the F7 arpeggio and the corresponding F7 chord shape. F7 Arpeggio F7 Chord 7th 7th 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 3 4 4 3 3                         8 11 8 10 10 8 10 10 8 7 10 10 7 8 8 6 6 8  8 © 2012 Bob Murnahan - All Rights Reserved www.leadguitartactics.com Page 8 Arpeggios And The Blues Once again, use the chord shape to help with visualizing and memorizing the arpeg- gios. The guitar is full of various shapes that can be used as visual elements to assist with your learning. Take full advantage of them! Contrasting The F7 Chord And The C Pentatonic Scale Now let’s contrast the notes of the C pentatonic scale with the notes in the F7 chord. The following chart illustrates the differences. 1 b3 3 4 5 b7 C Pent. Scale C Eb F G Bb F7 Arpeggio F A C Eb Just like with the C7 chord, the C minor pentatonic scale and the F7 chord share 3 notes, the F, C and Eb. That leaves the notes G and Bb as potential tension spots. The G can function as the 9th of the F7 chord and again, depending on register can ac- tually be a cool note to play against the F7 chord. The Bb is the 4th or 11th compared to the F7 and almost always sound a bit off. In just about every situation when the 4th is played against a chord that contains a major 3rd, it will sound a bit odd. This is because they are only a half step apart which causes a bit of a clash. The 4th wants to resolve to the third. In the video I point this out so keep your eyes and ears open. Exercise 2 Exercise 2 is the same as before except that the backing track is an F7 chord instead the C7 chord. Again, play each note of the scale slowly against the backing track so you can hear for yourself where the tension is created. Of course, as mentioned before, the arpeggio notes create no tension because they are part of the chord. I do want to point out that when the chords are isolated like this, the tension notes tend to jump out. If they were heard in the context of the entire blues progression they can and probably would sound better. However, targeting the chord tones will always make your playing sound “sweeter” be- cause of the match between the notes and the chord. © 2012 Bob Murnahan - All Rights Reserved www.leadguitartactics.com Page 9 Arpeggios And The Blues The V Chord The G7 chord is built from the notes G, B, D and F. Here are the diagrams and tab for the G7 arpeggio and the corresponding G7 chord shape. G7 Arpeggio G7 Chord 7th 1 1 1 7th 2 2 1 3 2 4 4 4 4 4 3                        7 10 7 8 8 7 10 10 7 9 9 10 10 8 8 10  10 7 10 As mentioned previously the chord shape can be seen inside the fingering for the G7 arpeggio. I want to keep pointing this out in order to stress the importance of visualiza- tion as an aid in learning the guitar. One last thing...I always like to start and stop the arpeggios on the root of the chord. If you look at the tab you will see what I mean. It starts on the G at the 10th fret, 5th string and ends the same way. I also play them like this on the video. I feel that this really helps me hear the sound of the chord I am outlining. In a solo how- ever, you can start anywhere inside the scale or arpeggio. The notes you stop on have more impact than the notes you start on. © 2012 Bob Murnahan - All Rights Reserved www.leadguitartactics.com Page 10 Arpeggios And The Blues Contrasting The G7 Chord And The C Pentatonic Scale This time around let’s compare the notes of the G7 chord to the notes in the C minor pentatonic scale. The following chart one again illustrates the differences. 1 b3 3 4 5 b7 C Pent. Scale C Eb F G Bb G7 Arpeggio G B D F The I and IV chords both share 3 notes with the C minor pentatonic scale but the V chord only shares 2, the G and F. This means that there are more potential tension spots that you need to be aware of. The C is the 4th or 11th of the G7 chord. I have already discussed the problems that can arise when playing the this note. The Eb can also be named D# which is the #5 of the G7 chord. This note choice creates tension but can be interesting. The Bb is the b3 or #9 and again can be interesting but does create tension. Once again you have to let your ears and your personal taste guide you. And as I also stated previously, context makes a difference too. Exercise 3 Video 3 contains a similar exercise to the one on the first 2 videos. This time the C minor pentatonic scale will be played slowly against the G7 chord. As you listen make decisions about how each note sounds against the chord. Do the notes create tension or not? If so, how much tension do they create? If they do create tension, is it still acceptable to your ear? At some point in your guitar playing journey you have to start taking responsibilty for what you are hearing and playing. Doing these types of exercise will help kick start you down that path. Do not be afraid of making mistakes or sounding bad. Just apply what you are learning, take notes about what you like and don’t like, and you will improve. In the end it gets down to the amount of time that you are willing to put into it. Practice and apply...those are the keys! © 2012 Bob Murnahan - All Rights Reserved www.leadguitartactics.com Page 11 Arpeggios And The Blues Arpeggio Exercise In video segment 4 you are going to apply the arpeggios you have been working on to the 12 bar blues. It’s a standard blues with a quick change to the IV chord in measure 2. The idea behind this exercise is to play the appropriate arpeggio over each chord (C7 arpeggio over the C7 chord, etc) and switch from one arpeggio to the next using the closest available note. Move in the same direction, up or down until you run out of room, then change and move back in the other direction. Check out the demo on the video to see this in action. This exercise will help you get more familiar witheach arpeggio and prevent you from becoming dependent on starting the arpeggios from the same place every time. You do not want to become what I call “root dependent,” meaning that you are only comfort- able if you start the arpeggios from the root each time. In the real world, you have to be able to get in and out of each arpeggio from any note, anywhere on the fretboard. When you have this kind of mastery over the tools of soloing(scales, arpeggios, etc.), a whole new world of music will become available to you. How do you there? You guessed it...practice and apply. Here is the tab for the exercise as I played it in the video. © 2012 Bob Murnahan - All Rights Reserved www.leadguitartactics.com Page 12 Arpeggios And The Blues                     8 12 8 10 11 8 8 10 9 8 10 10 8 7 10  8 5                   8 12 8 8 11 11 8 9 7 7 10 8 6 6 8  8 9                   7 8 10 7 7 10 9 8 10 10 8 6 6 7 10  8 13                   8 12 8 11 10 10 8 10 8 8 10 10 7 7 10  8 © 2012 Bob Murnahan - All Rights Reserved www.leadguitartactics.com Page 13