Chord
All notes at once. Full, rhythmic, loud.
REFERENCE / ARPEGGIOS
A chord, one note
at a time.
Arpeggios turn a strummed block of sound into a moving line. They are how guitarists play gentle intros and verses, fingerstyle accompaniment, and solos that follow the chords. This page covers what they are, where they are on the neck, and how songs use them.
01 / WHAT IS AN ARPEGGIO?
Same notes, spread out in time.
Strum a C chord and C, E and G sound together. Play them one after another and you have a C arpeggio. Nothing about the harmony changes, only the rhythm and texture.
Arpeggio
The same notes one by one. Clear, flowing, lets each note ring.
Scale
Every note of the key, stepwise. Arpeggios skip the notes between chord tones.
Two ways to use them
Accompaniment: hold a chord shape and pick its strings in a pattern. Lead: play the chord's notes as a melodic line, often in a single-note shape.
The formula is the chord
Major arpeggio = 1 3 5, minor = 1 b3 5, dominant 7 = 1 3 5 b7. Know the chord formula and you know the arpeggio.
Why it sounds "right"
Every note is a chord tone, so over the matching chord nothing clashes. That makes arpeggios the safest notes in any solo.
02 / ARPEGGIO SHAPES
Find every arpeggio on the neck.
Choose a root and chord type. Learn one hand-sized shape at a time: root on the 6th, 5th or 4th string. Together they cover the neck.
Root Chord tone in this shape Same chord tone elsewhere · click any dot to hear it
How to learn a shape
- Play it low to high and back, one note per click, saying the degree out loud (1, 3, 5…).
- Then play the matching chord and arpeggio back to back; hear that they are the same sound.
- Move the shape to a new root: it's movable, like a barre chord.
03 / PICKING PATTERNS
Six patterns that cover most songs.
For accompaniment, hold the whole chord and pick its strings in a repeating order. B = the chord's bass note (its root), alt = alternate bass string. Click a pattern to hear it on a C chord.
04 / ARPEGGIOS IN SONGS
Worked examples in six styles.
Each example is a four-chord loop in a common style, with the pattern that suits it. Play it, then read why it works. Swap the pattern to hear how much the feel changes with the same chords.
05 / SOLOING WITH ARPEGGIOS
Make the solo follow the chords.
In a lead, play each chord's arpeggio while that chord sounds. Stay in one area of the neck and start each new arpeggio on the note nearest to where the last one ended. The line moves smoothly and the harmony is clear even without a band.
Chord root Chord tone of the selected chord Tones of the other chords, same position
- 1
Outline, then decorate
Start with pure arpeggios like above. Once they're comfortable, add one scale note between chord tones as a passing note. That's how most melodic solos are built.
- 2
Land on the 3rd
The 3rd of each chord says "major" or "minor" most clearly. Aim for it on beat 1 when the chord changes.
- 3
Use 7th arpeggios for jazz and soul
Four-note arpeggios (1 3 5 7) over 7th chords sound sophisticated immediately. In a ii–V–I, the 7th of one chord often moves down a half step to the 3rd of the next.
- 4
Superimpose for colour
Over Am, an arpeggio of C (C E G) gives Am7's 3rd, 5th and 7th. Playing the arpeggio a 3rd above the root adds extensions without new shapes.
06 / PRACTICE
Exercises and common mistakes.
Ten minutes a day on these turns arpeggios from a shape into a sound you reach for without thinking.
Daily exercises
- Chord → arpeggio: strum a chord once, then pick its notes. Repeat through G, C, D, Em.
- One pattern, many chords: keep the rolling pattern going while changing chords every bar. Don't stop the right hand.
- Metronome ladder: 60 BPM eighth notes; go up 4 BPM only after three clean loops.
- Shape in 3 places: play the C major arpeggio with the root on string 6, 5 and 4.
- Nearest-note changes: loop Am–F–C–G, starting each arpeggio on the closest note to the last.
Common mistakes
- Lifting fingers too early. Hold the full chord so notes ring into each other.
- Bass note on the wrong string. The bass should usually be the chord's root; check which string it's on for each chord.
- Uneven timing. Arpeggios expose rhythm; count out loud.
- Too loud a bass. Balance the thumb with the fingers.
- Only going up. Practise descending and zig-zag orders too.