How to Play Guitar Arpeggios

Now that you have the major, minor, and guitar pentatonic scales forms from the previous guitar lessons under your belt, the next fundamental to cover for good soloing technique is arpeggios.  This next set of how to play guitar will cover the major and minor guitar arpeggios as they fall in the major guitar scale.

What is an arpeggio?

Simply put, arpeggios are the root, third and fifth scale tones each chord being played one at a time.  Played quickly, they have a harp like effect. Metal guitarist have used these along with the sweep picking technique to great affect, and they way the notes are laid out on the fingerboard allow you to play them in rapid succession (simply put, you play faster without doing a whole lot).

Major Chord - Guitar Arpeggios: sixth string root

The first guitar arpeggio in these guitar lessons is built off of the root, third and fifth scale tone of the major scale: the same note that make up the root chord. We’ll use the same root as we did when learning the major scale: G.

G:

Minor Chord - Guitar Arpeggios: sixth string root

The next guitar arpeggios we’ll learn in these learn to play guitar series is the minor arpeggio.The harmonic structure of the major scale is such that chords built on the second, third and sixth scale tones are minor chords. So the next two examples will be the Am and Bm (the 2 and 3 chords in G major).

Am:

Bm:

Major Chord - Guitar Arpeggios: fifth string root

The chords built off of the fourth and fifth scale tones of a major scale (C and D when in the key of G) are both major chords. Unlike the first major chord arpeggio we learned at the beginning of these guitar lessons, this next form is built off of the note being played on the fifth string.

C:

D:

Minor Chord - Guitar Arpeggios: fifth string root

As we mentioned earlier the chord built of the 6th scale tone (along with the 2nd and 3rd scale tones) is a minor chord. However, unlike the example of the minor arpeggio we covered earlier, this next sample is going to be built of the sixth note of the G major scale being played on the fifth string.

Em:

Play Diminished Chord - Guitar Arpeggios

The way the major scale is structured, a chord built on the 7th scale step is neither a major or minor chord, but is what is called a diminished chord. The 7th scale step in G major is F# (F sharp). We won’t go into the music theory of what the make up of a diminished chord is here, but here is how the guitar arpeggio is played:

F# dim:

Actually, you might have noticed that this guitar arpeggios have four notes (F#, A, C, E), so without getting too technical (but still being accurate) this is a Diminished 7 arpeggio.

How to Play Guitar Arpeggios: Review

So now you have all the arpeggios that lay within the G major scale. These electric guitar lessons will help you create more interesting sounds when soloing, as well as help you transition from high string to low string (or low string to high strings) quickly.