Fingerstyle Licks: #4 The Arpeggio

This Fingerstyle Licks free weekly guitar lesson series is by Keith Murray, a classical & fingerstyle guitarist and instructor who is working on a new TrueFire online classroom. Stay tuned for more and be sure to subscribe!

Video Guitar Lesson:

Chart & Tab:

The arpeggio is used by classical guitarists as a practice tool to achieve
strength, dexterity and independence in the right hand. There have been many
studies and pieces written for this specific purpose. It can also be used to
great musical effect, because it is possible to give the impression of an
independent melody being played over an arpeggiated accompaniment. Again this
helps us create the effect of more than one guitar, and it’s a great
compositional tool.

The term arpeggio, simply means broken chord. For a guitarist, this usually
translates into the use of various right hand picking patterns to break up the
chord. I have taken an excerpt from an arpeggio study I wrote a few years ago as
today’s lick. It features a 3-part texture: A bass, an arpeggio accompaniment and
a melody; the melody being played by the thumb in this case.

Listen to some classical guitar studies for examples of the arpeggio being used
to create really great music. For example: Fernando Sor’s study in Bminor, Matteo
Carcassi’c Study No. 3 in A and Fransisco Tarrega’s Estudio Brillante.

This Fingerstyle Licks free weekly guitar lesson series is by Keith Murray, a classical & fingerstyle guitarist and instructor who is working on a new TrueFire online classroom. Stay tuned for more and be sure to subscribe!