Major & Minor Arpeggios
An arpeggio is the notes of a chord played in order, over two octaves for the purposes of this lesson. Arpeggios are useful for lead guitar playing, in so far as they emphasise the notes that harmonise best with their parent scale – using arpeggios exclusively for soloing would all but guarantee very note you hit sounded as sweet as you like alongside the backing instruments, though some dissonance and the resolution of it in phrasing is where the fun of lead guitar comes from!
A Major Arpeggio
A major arpeggio is constructed from the first (root), major third and fifth notes of the scale – the same notes used to build a major chord. You can play a major arpeggio in many different positions, and in many different ways, but these two patterns are the fundamental building blocks. You may also notice a similarity with the parent Major Scale. These examples are A Major (Root on the 6th), and D Major (Root on the 5th):
A Minor Arpeggio
A minor arpeggio is constructed from the first (root), minor (or flattened) third and fifth notes of the scale – the same notes used to build a minor chord. You can play a minor arpeggio in many different positions, and in many different ways, but these two patterns are the fundamental building blocks. You may also notice a similarity with the parent Minor Scale. These examples are A Minor (Root on the 6th), and D Minor (Root on the 5th):
These are movable shapes that you can position yourself to get the arpeggio you need. All you need is the patterns shown and the fretboard diagram from the theory tab of Guitar Grade 3, and you’ll be able to play any major or minor arpeggio in any key!
Performance Notes
The images that follow, as always, show a guitar fretboard as if you’re holding the guitar in front of you, with the nut being the thick black line at the top. An ‘O’ next to a string means play that string ‘open’ (no fingers on frets), an ‘X’ means the chord does not need that string to be played. The black dots direct you to place a fingertip in that location, with the numbers being the suggested finger to use – 1=Index, 2=Middle, 3=Ring, 4=Pinky. The coloured dots are root notes – in an A major arpeggio, the root note is A, in a D minor arpeggio it is D, and so on.
When playing an arpeggio, make sure to alternate downstrokes, where your pick crosses the string in a downward motion, and upstrokes where your pick crosses the string in an upward motion. Doing this doubles your efficiency, and ultimately the speed you can play – more and more important with each passing grade! Use enough pressure to get the notes to sound cleanly, moving your fingertip as close to the fret to the right (for a right-hander) will give you the best chance of a strong note. Check out the video lesson on Major and Minor Arpeggios:
Maintain an even tempo as you play through the scales and across the strings up and down. Refer back to the Reading Notation section if you need a refresher on these diagrams:
The arpeggio patterns shown above for the Major and Minor Arpeggios are movable – so if you’re playing lead over chords in the key of A minor you can start the minor arpeggio from the 5th fret. If you’re playing in G, start the same pattern at the third fret – and so on.
Check out the fretboard diagram in the theory tab of Guitar Grade 3 to work on memorising the notes of the low E string – the most important place to start!
You’ll find some backing tracks to test these arpeggios over on my YouTube channel HERE.
And that’s the Major and Minor arpeggios for you. You can find more articles on scales and guitar technique to help you develop as a player here. If you’ve got any questions please get in touch on Facebook or Twitter.
