To me, one of the most valuable study practices has been the exploration of arpeggios (also known as “broken chords,” wherein each note of a chord is played individually and in succession)...
To me, one of the most valuable study practices has been the exploration of arpeggios (also known as “broken chords,” wherein each note of a chord is played individually and in succession) played across all the strings. Like most guitarists, I began on six-string and soon graduated to seven- and then eight-string guitar. This month, I’d like to demonstrate some cool ways to perform a variety of arpeggios on the seven-string guitar.
An approach that has worked well for me is to devise a specific arpeggio fingering pattern diagonally across the strings, spanning over two octaves, for which I can then alter one or two notes in each octave to morph from one chord quality to another, for example, from minor seven to dominant seven or major seven. This way, the fingerings are visually and physically similar and thus easier to memorize.
Let’s begin with an Em7 chord (see FIGURE 1). After I strum the chord, I pick the notes of an Em7 arpeggio: E (the root), G (the minor, or “flatted,” third), B (the fifth) and D (the minor, or “flatted,” seventh), descending across the top five strings in seventh position and then continuing across the bottom three strings in fifth position.
In order to get the most out of my practice time, I’ll incorporate economy picking (also known as rest-stroke picking) into the execu- tion of arpeggios such as this. Economy picking is a technique whereby you use the same pick direction when crossing to an adjacent (neigh- boring) string: when moving from a lower to a higher string, the last note on the lower string and the first note on the higher string are picked with downstrokes. Conversely, when moving from a higher to a lower string, the