Who doesn't love arpeggios? They are the backbone of melody in Music, they help connect the soloist to the harmony in many different ways. I'm a big fan of 80s Rock Guitar, I love the way players like Eddie Van Halen incorporate Arpeggios into their lead and rhythm work.
There are so many different ways of seeing them and playing them on the Guitar, in this short study I've composed a solo that gives us various approaches that can lead to a different way of playing lead guitar!
In Bars 1 through to 8 we are playing small arpeggio 'shells' that outline the triads of the basic chord progression:
| Am / / / | / / / / | F / / / | Dm / / / | Bb / / / | / / / / | Am / / / | E / / / |
I'm focusing on keeping the notes close together, so rather than moving far up or down the neck, I'm keeping the voicings close by not moving the shapes around too much.
Bars 9 to 10, a cool bending lick to bring the main solo in!
Here we have a Neil Schon inspired variation on a classic EVH style idea. We're bending the 7th fret on the G string whilst tapping the 12th, 14th then 15th fret for a nice ascending melody.
Bars 11 to 12, Big Arpeggios
I'm a big fan of Richie Kotzen (Posion/Mr Big/Winery Dogs) he would often add in 7th arpeggios into his rock style playing, taking an inspiration from Jazz guitar and making it fit in this rock context is a great way to make your playing sound expensive.
Bars 13 to 14, the Bb Lydian Bit
Wide vibrato is key here, hold that Bb like note like its worth a billion pounds. George Lynch would be proud! At the end, I took a bit of a left turn and added a Neo Soul style lick to embrace the Bb Lydian vibes. Enjoy!
Bar 15: Pentatonic add9
This cool 16th note lick uses the Pentatonic add 9 Scale (sounds complicated...) but its really not, we're just adding a 9th to our ordinary Minor Pentatonic to make it sound a little smoother. Loads of top players do this, so why not join them! I also mixed up the techniques here, moving from hammer ons and pull offs to picking towards the end of the bar to create contrast before moving into the final phrase.
Bar 16: E7 Arpeggios and out!
Here's some more 7th arpeggios, this time E7. We're moving through 2 "212" patterns that outline inversions of an E7 Arpeggio. Enjoy!
You can learn more about Pentatonic 212's in my book 'Creative Pentatonic Rock Concepts' https://geni.us/cpbook
