What

are

arpeggios?

Arpeggios are the notes of a chord played one at a time. I think of them as 'liquid chords' (or
chords could be 'frozen arpeggios'). When you practice an arpeggio you would usually start with
playing the notes in order, for example, Root note, 3rd, 5th, 7th for a Major 7th Arpeggio.
Most arpeggios are just 4 notes each, it is possible to play 9th, 11th and 13 arpeggios but they are
a lot less common and there are other easier ways to use the 4 note type that gives you all the
notes (if you are new to arpeggios then don't go there yet, but it's Superimposing Arpeggios).
When put into use in a real playing environment you do not need to play the notes in order, they
can be jumbled up much like the way you would use notes in a scale and in many ways they are
similar... but:
When we learn scales we learn a bunch of notes that fit over the chords in a certain key.
When we learn an arpeggio we learn a bunch of notes that fit over a particular chord.
How

are

arpeggios

used?

Arpeggios are used over specific chords, and you would change arpeggio every time a chord
changes. Yes you heard that right. I still clearly remember sitting on the floor about 15 years old
with my jam buddy Andy, and we were trying to play the Miles Davis song Freddy Freeloader. We
both knew our arpeggio shapes but were really struggling to change with the chords. When I
realised later that the fast be-bop jazz players were changing arpeggio every bar at 240 beats per
minute, I almost gave up...
But it doesn't have to be like that. They can be used very easily in basic melody playing and in
blues, they are not only for use in Jazz, but if you want to play jazz you MUST learn all your
arpeggios and how to use them.
Examining a 12 Bar Blues is a good introduction. When you start learning to play blues you will
most likely be playing a minor pentatonic over the whole sequence, maybe you learn some licks
and stuff, but for the most part you will be playing the one scale over a group of chords.
At some point you will probably want to start thinking more chordally and playing notes that are
related to the chord being played and this is where arpeggios come into action!
Because arpeggios are liquid chords, they can also outline the harmony without having to play
chords. Huh? If somebody is using arpeggios well they can out lien the chord progression and it
almost sounds like the chords are being played, but they are not - the are just being suggested by
the arpeggios!
There are often times that in a song all the chords belong to a key, except for one!! When this
happens you would use an arpeggio over the chord that does not fit the scale. In the following
example the chord G, C and Amin are all in the key of G, but in the key of G, chord VI would be E
minor, and because the chord here is E7 we would use the arpeggio just over that chord, and stick
with the scale for the rest of the improvisation!

Chord:
Note
choice:

G
C
<----------- G Major Scale
------------>

E7
E7 Arpeggio

Amin
G major
Scale

It is also worth noting that if you use the chord tones to play your solo it will sound cool. And you
don't have to use them just for chords that are not in a key. You can use them for every chord, in
fact I would recommend that you do. Using scales is fine, but once you start playing from the
chords you playing will really move up a few gears.

Chord:
Note
choice:
or:

G
C
Emin
Amin
<-------------------------------- G Major Scale
-------------------------------->
G Maj
C Maj
E min
A min
Arpeggio
Arpeggio
Arpeggio
Arpeggio

It seems to me that most of the great guitar players think about chords more scales, and if you
examine the note choices of your favorite players you are bound to find that they are mostly
playing arpeggio tones. You will even find that many of the great old skool blues guitar players like
BB King are using arpeggio tones. Yep. I'm pretty sure those old blues guys don't know the theory
of what they are doing, but their ears do! And even if they are playing minor pentatonic they tend
to pick notes that relate to the chord they are playing over!
A great exercise would be to take a great solo by someone you like (Sultans Of Swing would be a
good one if you are stuck for choice) and look at every note played, and what chord it is played
over. When I was doing this a lot, I usually transcribed a solo in tab and notation and wrote the
chords above the notes (or you could use a bought tab book) and then I wrote in red pen under
the notes, what the relationship was between the note and the chord it was played over (like 2,
b3, 5, b7, 5 #5, 6, etc). When you do this type of harmonic analysis you will grow as a player,
because you will start to examine note choice more constructively and fill your head with cool
concepts that you can extract and use in your own playing. Bit off track but very useful if you can
see how great players use arpeggios!
Which

arpeggios

should

learn

first?

I think that the best arpeggios to learn first are the Dominant 7th arpeggios (the E shape and the
A shape). Learn to use these in a 12 Bar Blues (in the key of A) and get familiar with the idea. As
well as being used in blues, the 7th chords are the most common chord type used 'out of key' as
described above.
I have some lessons on exactly this, in the Jazz Up Your Blues series in which we look at
the Dominant 7th ArpeggioShapes and also The Arpeggiator which is a great exercise to learn
to link them!
You should make sure that you are very comfortable playing over a 12 Bar Blues before you even
think about getting into arpeggio playing.
If you pick a 12 Bar Blues in the key of A, you will need to know your A7, D7 and E7 arpeggios.
A fun way to get started is just try and play the notes from the A7 arpeggio (E shape) over the A7
chord and jam the minor pentatonic scale over the rest, you will get a taste for it and get the
sound in your ear.
The get the D7 arpeggio shape down (A shape) and see if you can change from the A7 to the D7
and back again, and maybe just jam minor pentatonic for the last bit where the chords change
faster!
When you are comfortable with that have a go at moving the D7 shape you have learnt up two
frets so it becomes E7 (a very good sounding and easy trick is to play a simple lick using notes
from the E7 arpeggio and then move the same lick down two frets for the D7).
Eventually you should be mixing up the minor pentatonic, the blues scale, all your lick, PLUS the
arpeggios for each chord at the appropriate time! It sounds awesome, and to my ear it's one of the
things that makes somebody sound great!

When you become confident changing your arpeggios over a basic 12 Bar Blues sequence, you
might like to try playing over a Jazz II-V-I progression, say Dmin7, G7 to CMaj7. Try and stay in
the same position for the whole thing, for example, to stay around Position 3, you'll be using C
Shape for the Dmin7, E Shape for the G7 and A Shape for the CMaj7. Once you can handle that I'd
recommend starting to explore easy jazz standards and seeing if you can play all the way through
the songs using only chord tones (arpeggio notes) for the whole song, you'll learn a lot by doing
that!
*If you don't understand the 'shape' talk you need to check out the lesson on The CAGED
System.

There are five arpeggios shapes for each chord, which order should I learn them?
The big thing to remember here is not to just rush into learning lots of arpeggio shapes that you
don't use, you will forget them and it's a waste of time and energy.
Learn them as you need them, I was using E and A shape grips of each of the main jazz chord
types (Maj7, min7, Dom7 and min7b5) for a few years before I got stuck into the rest. It is better
to be able to play and use a few arpeggios (in this case 8 arpeggios) than be able to play 20 and
not be able to use them.
You will also find that learning the E and A shape root arpeggio shapes firs well with the 10 Basic
Jazz Chords you will learn as you get into jazz, and being able to see the chord and the arpeggio
together it will help you learn to use them.

I'm sure you good people will have more questions, so fire away in the forum and I will get to
them as soon as I can :) Hope that helps a bit...