Rhythm Technique Melody Harmony Repertoire Improvisation Shop Rhythm Technique Melody Harmony Repertoire Improvisation Performance CONTACT TUITION PUBLICATIONS RECORDINGS PERFORMANCES SITE MAP Acts Peter Inglis - BIOGRAPHY Home Page Search Bookings Acts Bio
Harmony - voices singing together
Positional versus Longitudinal arpeggio forms

The guitar is a chordal instrument.

It is designed to easily produce full and pleasing harmonies and chord voicings.

Arpeggios are chords spelt out in time - the notes are played one after the other, often ringing together (in the manner of a harp.

Interestingly, 7th chord arpeggios are much easier to execute on the guitar than triadic arpeggios, because the 7th form replaces the often awkward leap of a 4th between 5th and upper tonic with the much easier to execute minor 3rd interval from 5th to flattened 7th.

There are two main ways to visualise arpeggios on the guitar, both have advantages, disadvantages and preferred places to use them which depend on context - where you have come from and where you are going in the musical passage.
  1. Positional forms - based on a common chord voicing and insert the missing chord degrees to create the full arpeggio.
  2. Longitudinal forms - using triad shapes with more position changes up the neck.


Positional form



This pattern is created by playing the D minor 7th at the 5th position and converting into it's arpeggio form:

Image © 2004 - Peter Inglis - www.thewholeguitarist.com Image © 2004 - Peter Inglis - www.thewholeguitarist.com Advantages
  • easy to visualise
  • 1st finger on the tonic
Disadvantages
  • more left hand effort - holding down a barre chord and retaining freedom of movement in the hand is not a simple technique.

Longitudinal form

Image © 2004 - Peter Inglis - www.thewholeguitarist.com Image © 2004 - Peter Inglis - www.thewholeguitarist.com Advantages
  • Left hand is fast
  • Left hand requires minimal effort
  • Right hand - simple and repeated fingerings
  • Right Hand - thumb on the tonic in the first 2 octaves




Examples

There are a few examples of the longitudinal form in my Black Orpheus video at the final cadenza, which show how easy it is to string together melodic sequences with this fingering.
  • 03 min 16 secs
  • 03 min 31 secs
  • 03 min 34 secs
Click HERE to hear an example of arpeggios played with the longitudinal fingerings over a ii-V-I progression.

Click HERE to hear an example of an augmented arpeggio played melodically with a longitudinal fingering.

Right Hand fingerings -coming soon
CLICK HERE TO ENQUIRE ABOUT ADVERTISING IN THIS SPACE
'Guitar Playing and How it Works' - The 3rd Edition of this acclaimed book opens doors to musical performance for guitarists of all styles - Click here to read excerpts and order your copy.

'Guitar Playing and how it works' - This is the book you need to GET THE BASICS right for ANY style of guitar playing. Work out the best approaches to mastering any style of music. Open the doors to your own personal style - click here to read excerpts and see videos.



Content of "The Whole Guitarist" website www.thewholeguitarist.com is copyright © 1997 - 2008 by Peter Inglis, Sydney Australia. All rights reserved.