Arpeggios: best order to learn them

[ianw]

Greetings all,

I've been working on arpeggios as a means of enhancing the structure and melody of my solos and would recommend it to any intermediate player who wants to improve their soloing and their general command of and feel for the instrument.

I've been using the Hal Leonard Arpeggio Finder book, which basically illustrates arpeggios for 28 different qualities for each key in four different positions. I've been learning the major, minor, major seventh and minor seventh arpeggios in all four positions, practising them with together with scales and modal exercises, but am not sure where to go from there.

Should I take the major and minor arps up to 9th and 11th or should I look at dominant 7th and 9th arpeggios first? I play mostly rock, blues and soul - I'm not into jazz at all, but I would like to get into funk at some stage.

So what would you advise me to concentrate on? Any suggestions very much welcome


Ian

[Malcolm]

Should I take the major and minor arps up to 9th and 11th or should I look at dominant 7th and 9th arpeggios first? I play mostly rock, blues and soul - I'm not into jazz at all, but I would like to get into funk at some stage. So what would you advise me to concentrate on? Any suggestions very much welcome
Ian
Sounds like you've got the patterns down and taking those patterns to 9th and 11 is not that big a stretch - go for it. Yes to dominant 7th.

What to concentrate on now - melody. We are told to gather our melody notes from the chord tones - well that's what arpeggios are chord tones. Use those patterns to produce melodic phrases -- same old story as long as we play patterns in order we sound like scale exercises. A Google on melody will bring up several papers on the subject.

You've got the framework down next is how to use it. Melody is the goal. Pull up some Lead Sheet music and analyze why specific melody notes were used over that chord.

http://www.wikifonia.org/node/2167
Key of C the song leads off with 6 measures of just C's chord tones plus one B note thrown in as a passing note. Then 4 measures of F's chord tones with one passing note (G). Great example of melody notes coming from the chord tones.

http://www.wikifonia.org/node/614
This one gets a little more complicated.

Good luck.

[JonR]

Should I take the major and minor arps up to 9th and 11th or should I look at dominant 7th and 9th arpeggios first? I play mostly rock, blues and soul - I'm not into jazz at all, but I would like to get into funk at some stage.Definitely get all types up to 7ths before venturing further.
For rock, blues, soul, funk etc: maj7, dom7, m7.
For jazz, add: diminished (m7b5 and dim7), m(maj7), and altered dom7s.

9ths, of course, enrich any chord. Dom9s occur in funk and soul (the typical James Brown chord is a dom9). Maj9s are more jazz-ballad; m9s have a sweet-soul-jazz sound.
b9s and #9s occur on altered dom7s in jazz. (The famous Hendrix 7#9 is a blues/funk tonic - doesn't benefit too well from arpeggiating, IMO.)

With 11ths and 13ths you're getting dangerously near jazz territory :cool: , but 7sus4s and 9sus4s (11ths without the 3rds) are common in the more sophisticated kinds of rock and soul (Steely Dan are full of em). You might also find 13ths (dom7s with 13 and maybe 9 added).
As a non-jazz fan, don't bother with 11s or 13s on major or minor chords. But look at 6ths on both (that's major 6ths, not b6s). 6ths on majors have a faint vintage jazz vibe, but you get them in rockabilly too. 6ths on minors (as i or iv chords) have a more quirky sound, kind of pseudo-Latin (quite fun for the occasional cheesy effect).

Remember, of course, that with 11th and 13th chords, an arpeggio is damn near an entire scale!

[ChrisJ]

This is just my opinion but after 7th arpeggios, it is all about superimposing to get the upper extensions. For 5 for example, to get a Cmaj9 sound, play an Emin7 arpeggio over the C chord: E-G-B-D. E=3, G=5, B=7, D=9. Or to get a Dmin13 sound, play a Dmin7 and Bmin7b5. There is some more info here:

http://chrisjuergensen.com/arpeggios.htm

[tedmaul]

This is just my opinion but after 7th arpeggios, it is all about superimposing to get the upper extensions. For 5 for example, to get a Cmaj9 sound, play an Emin7 arpeggio over the C chord: E-G-B-D. E=3, G=5, B=7, D=9. Or to get a Dmin13 sound, play a Dmin7 and Bmin7b5. There is some more info here:

http://chrisjuergensen.com/arpeggios.htm

Was just about to post the same. I never really think in terms of playing 9th or 11th arpeggio shapes, it's just about playing the triad and 7th arpeggios super-imposed over other chords.

EDIT: Excellent article! Damn, i wish the internet was around when i was a kid. :)

[trigmachine]

i first started learning arpeggios as part of my guitar exams but they dont give you the full picture in terms of how to apply them whils improising/soloing....... so i started working out apreggios in each of the 5 caged shapes that could be used over chord progressions example .... Imaj7 -IVmaj7 - V7. which can be transposed to any key. but you could do any progression ive started with the above plus a minor I-IV-V and II-V-I. It will really help if yo know your scales inside out, chord intervals etc..... hope this helps