Arpeggios
Although chords are the basis of rhythm guitar, it is common to play the notes individually when playing lead guitar. When the notes of a chord are played one at a time, they are called an arpeggio. The value of arpeggios is that they enable you to play lines which fit chord progressions perfectly, since every note of an arpeggio is a note of the accompanying chord. The following example demonstrates a C major arpeggio which consists of the notes C, E and G. These are the root, third and fifth of a C major chord.
Minor Arpeggios
For every type of chord there is a corresponding arpeggio. This means there are major, minor, augmented, diminished, dominant seventh and minor seventh arpeggios among others. The following example shows a C minor arpeggio which consists of the notes C,
Dominant 7th Arpeggios
Since Dominant 7th chords are the most common chords used in Blues, their arpeggios can be used when soloing over most Blues progressions, Like their chords, dominant 7th arpeggios consist of four notes taken from the major scale of the same letter name.
These notes are the first (1), third (3), fifth (5) and flattened seventh (b7) notes of the major scale, so the formula for the seventh arpeggio is:
The flattened seventh note in this arpeggio is the same b7 note that is found in the Blues scale. Notice that the seventh chord is simply a major chord with a flattened seventh note added. The following example shows a C7 arpeggio.
Here is a lick which is based on the previously shown C7 arpeggio which is played within the A form. Like scales, there are five basic forms of each arpeggio type which cover the whole fretboard when linked together. The five forms of the C7 arpeggio are shown in the following diagrams.
The following diagrams illustrate the five forms of a C7 arpeggio. Learn each one from memory and sing the degrees as you play the notes.
E Form (Pattern One)
D Form (Pattern Two)
C Form (Pattern Three)
A Form (Pattern Four)
G Form (Pattern Five)
