Other Right Hand Lessons: Introduction To The Right Hand Introduction To Strumming Strumming Patterns Rest Stroke Alternation String Crossing The Free Stroke With "P" String Assignment Block Chords Arpeggio Extensions "Artificial" Harmonics
Introduction To Arpeggios
You may wish to review String Assignment and Block Chords before continuing with this lesson.
Arpeggio - Italian. A broken chord, that is, a chord whose notes are performed one after another instead of together, usually beginning with the lowest note and ending with the highest.
Before discussing Arpeggios, I would like to introduce the concept of Points of Movement. A Point of Movement is a point in time at which movement takes place. It may be one movement or two simultaneous movements, or multiple simultaneous movements. It is important to remember that, in between Points of Movement, there should always be stillness and relaxation.
We will first discuss Ascending Arpeggios, as they require more attention during the first Point of Movement. This is the exactly the same first Point of Movement we discussed in Block Chords. You will begin with "p" on a bass string and "i", "m", and "a" in the hand, as if they have already played:
The first Point of Movement is exactly the same as in Block Chords, so now play "p" and return "i", "m", and "a" to the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings, respectively:
