Arpeggios

One of the most used techniques played on the guitar is the arpeggios. Arpeggio is a musical term and technique not only used by guitar players but also used by other musicians on different instruments.

When played on the guitar, it produces a very unique sound and shredders tend to use this technique a lot. Arpeggios are normally associated with sweep picking technique because you tend to sweep the notes when playing arpeggios. But arpeggios can also be played using alternate picking technique which is a little bit harder than the sweep picking.

Arpeggios can played on several strings and can be played on two, three, four, five and six strings. The easiest would be playing an arpeggio with just two strings and as you go further with using more strings on the guitar the technique becomes harder.

For beginners I would advice to try out two or three strings arpeggios. There are a few examples of three strings arpeggios and I recommend you guys to try out the three string diminished arpeggio that Yngwie Malmsteen often uses. The three string diminished arpeggio is not that difficult and it is commonly used by players around the world. I even see a lot of our local guitar players use that three string diminished arpeggio in their playing. It gets kinda cliché at times but for beginners to intermediate level its okay I guess.

To master playing arpeggio will take a lot of practice. I see a lot of our local guitar players trying to incorporate arpeggios in their playing and I also see a lot have not mastered the technique yet. Of course it’s easy to play the three string arpeggios but when they tried to play five or six string arpeggios they often get it to sound sloppy. You can’t clearly hear the notes they are playing because they can’t place their fingers properly to make it sound clean and clear. The goal of playing arpeggio is that the listeners can listen to every note of the arpeggios clean and clearly. Most guitar players tend to just try and play five or six string arpeggios to look cool and flashy on the fingers and ignore the importance of the clarity of notes when playing arpeggios. What’s the point of playing a six string arpeggio when you can only hear the first note he hits and the last note he hits? Where are all the notes in the middle?

Therefore playing arpeggio is not a technique to be taken lightly. I have seen a lot of guitar players who often tried to look cool playing the arpeggios when they don’t realise that their playing is actually lintang-pukang nya orang brunei. Its either they fail to understand the importance of playing arpeggios clearly or they are just being ignorant. What’s important to them is how flashy the fingers look when playing the arpeggios and what sound comes from playing it is of no importance.

That being said, I have also seen and met a few local guitar players who can really play the arpeggio that well. They really make it an important issue to play arpeggios as clean and clear as possible and they have achieved that goal.

It is very enjoyable to watch people play arpeggios with their flashy fingers and at the same time you can hear the clarity of every note they play.

So for you guys out there who are trying to learn on how to play arpeggios, I really recommend you guys to try and play it as clean and clear as possible so that the purpose of playing arpeggio would be used to the fullest effect.

See Ya

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