Arpeggios

An arpeggio is defined as the playing of successive notes in a chord. So if you played a chord on your guitar and if you played each string one after the other in succession, then you have just played an arpeggio. You can play it from the 1st string to the 6th string, or from the 6th string to the 1st string and it will still be an arpeggio. You must not confuse this with strumming. This is a very common technique used to play fast notes. You can also use a triad (triads are explained in the ‘chords’ section) as an arpeggio. Let’s look at a very neat example in “Burn” by Deep purple. (If you were born yesterday, then please know that Deep Purple was a very popular band in the late 60s, 70s and 80s).

Key A minor: All the chords played are triads (triad is a chord you play with just 3 notes).

                   Am                                                               Dm

1|----12-----------12-------------12-----13----------------13--------------13-------
2|--------13------------13---------------------15----------------15------------------
3|-------------14------------14---------------------14----------------14-------------
4|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                   G                                                                C

1|----10-----------10-------------10-----12----------------12--------------12-------
2|--------12------------12---------------------13----------------13------------------
3|-------------12------------12---------------------12----------------12-------------
4|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                   F                                                                Dm

1|-----8------------8--------------8------5------------------5---------------5--------
2|--------10-----------10----------------------6-----------------6--------------------
3|-------------10-----------10----------------------7-----------------7---------------
4|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


                  E with added notes. Repeat twice

1|-----4------------5-------------6-------------7---------------------------------------
2|---------5-------------5-------------5-------------5----------------------------------
3|--------------4-------------4-------------4-------------4-----------------------------
4|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------