Weaving Arpeggios into your
Lead Guitar Solos

In part 1, we were introduced to the basic theory behind playing arpeggios on guitar and how we pull the notes right out of a scale shape, in a similar way to how we would if we were building a chord from a scale.

In a nutshell, that's how you've got to see it - The arpeggio represents a chord flavour (e.g. you can have an Asus4 arpeggio, just like the Asus4 chord itself) so it's just a case of selecting the notes that would make up this chord from the appropriate scale/mode and laying out a more suitable fingering pattern across the fretboard to make the lead guitar fingering more flexible (as the regular chord shapes are often restrictively "boxed" in).

This lesson, we'll look at how to get more inventive with arpeggios, using them more dynamically, supporting your chord progressions and weaving them into soloing phrases effectively.

Do make sure you've been over part 1 and understood it before we move on with this...

Integrating arpeggios into regular lead phrases

Arpeggios work most effectively when they're seamlessly inserted into a regular guitar solo. You can use them in conjunction with an alternate rhythm (e.g. a "skipping" rhythm) to give your solo more character and variation.

When building a solo, we need to know what key the arpeggio will be in, or over which chord (more on accenting specific chords in a bit). So let's say the key of our whole chord progression is simply B major (we'll keep it simple for now) so we could play around with the B major scale comfortably.

I'm going to be playing around an ascending major scale shape for this pattern, which we'll also use to draw our arpeggio from in a minute...

Below is a solo taken from that very scale above - the red numbers in the tab indicate where we'll be injecting an arpeggio (as we're doing this step-by-step to make it clearer!)

Click the tab to hear

Now, we could keep it really simple and just inject a B major arpeggio into that existing B major solo. Remember, an arpeggio represents a chord, not a scale, so a B major arpeggio draws the same notes used in the B major chord from the B major scale!

Below is an example of a simple B major arpeggio pattern we can insert into the existing solo from above. Watch the sequence as we start with the full B major ascending scale pattern, then we remove all but the tones involved in a B major chord/arpeggio - root (1), 3rd (3) and 5th (5), and finally we take a smaller arpeggio phrase out of that...

Click diagram to hear the arpeggio from the last frame in the sequence

--------Side note---------

In a minute we'll be looking at how arpeggios can work with chord scales - try play a regular open E major chord over the B major arpeggio above and you'll hear how it's still compatible (in fact it sounds quite nice) - that's because E major is part of the B major chord scale! More on this soon.

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And now let's integrate that small arpeggio into the existing B major solo (it is, of course, up to you how and where you insert it - this is just an example).

>> Click to hear

You'll notice I make the arpeggio sound a little more interesting by using hammer-ons and pull-offs over the phrase. Once you learn how to use other techniques such as hammer ons, pull offs, bends, vibratos etc. you can really liven it all up!

Try your own over the same backing track below, referring back to that larger diagram for guidance (of course, there are other scale patterns you can use - I can't cover everything unfortunately!)

>> Click to hear

So, you can use this technique with major and minor arpeggios when building a solo - just experiment with inserting different arpeggio patterns into your solo, finding a rhythm and melody you like. Obviously I can only provide a limited number of examples (otherwise this page would drag on and on and you would only be learning parrot fashion!)... but I always use the same "procedure" for building arpeggios into solos that hold the same key throughout:

1) Know the key your solo is in (e.g. A minor/A major)
2) Know the arpeggio you want to play in this key (this is the chord "flavour" you want, e.g. Amadd9 over the Am key)
3) Insert the arpeggio in the sequence you think sounds best

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Using chord scales with arpeggios

Right, this is where it gets a little bit more tricky, mentally. For a good primer in understanding chord scales and the modal system, I strongly recommend you visit this lesson before we go any further. You need to know about how chords (and therefore arpeggios) work in a scale (e.g. major chord scale = I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii)

Once you understand how the natural sequence of chords work together, just like a scale (from the tonic/I major chord, to the 7th/vii diminished chord), you will realise that we don't have to tie the same arpeggio to the same chord (like above).

The idea is, when using arpeggios (or modes/scales for that matter), to make use of different parts of the chord scale (which is based on the modal system) because it can give a chord a whole different feel. For example, you can keep it simple, like above, and play a B major arpeggio over its directly related B major chord, but you can also play a C#m arpeggio over the B major chord (C#m is the ii chord in the B major chord scale) - it'll still have that same major flavour, but it'll have a different feel to it because C#m, in reality, uses tones from the B major scale, just jumbled around... bet you didn't know that :)

OK, I think we need an example here...

Remember the checklist from above?

1) Know the key your solo is in

Let's say our solo is in the key of D minor - this means we could keep it simple and play a tonic D minor arpeggio (as long as there are no out-of-key changes - more on this later).

Here's a simple Dm solo which we'll add an arpeggio into in a minute...

Click tab to hear

The red numbers indicate where I'm planning on inserting an arpeggio (it doesn't always have to be THIS calculated, but this is just to help it sink in for learning purposes).

2) Know the arpeggio you want to play in this key

So, we could just play a tonic D minor arpeggio within this D minor solo, but to make things more interesting, we could use the rules of modal music and build an arpeggio around a chord that would be part of the same key. Dm is obviously the root/tonic chord in the key of D minor, but F major is also part of that same key, as is A minor.

The diagram below shows us which arpeggios we could play over a D minor chord/progression, based on this modal chord scale.

It's all about experimenting - knowing what your options are - using the one that conveys the emotion you want over a particular chord or key.

-----------Side note-----------

This is all about knowing how chord scales work (lesson right here), and we know that where there's a chord, there's an arpeggio!

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Therefore, we could actually play an A minor arpeggio over a D minor chord/progression!

Let's try it now...

If we're playing an A minor arpeggio, we will need to draw this from the A minor scale (see the connection...!)

Two scale shapes overlap for this - the "A string ascending" minor scale and the "E string descending" minor scale. Because it's in the key of A, the diagram below shows where the scale needs to be positioned (look at what fret the root notes start at as a quick reference point).

And now we can narrow it all down and pull an arpeggio out. To make an Am arpeggio, we need to look at the tones used in an Am chord - Root (1), flat 3rd (b3) and fifth (5)...

Click diagram to hear the arpeggio from the final frame of the sequence

Now let's add in that arpeggio to the solo...

>> Click to hear

So in the example above, I ended up playing the A minor arpeggio over a Bbmaj7 chord - but because Bbmaj7 is part of the D minor key (and so is A minor, for the arpeggio), it's all compatible!

Here's the same backing track for you to have an experiment over - use the diagrams to find your own A minor (or different) arpeggios, from what we've learned about the chord scale options...

>> Click to hear

Now, once you've established which arpeggio you're going to play, you can then add further tensions such as dominant 7ths (like in part 1), added 9ths, 6ths etc. to the basic major or minor arpeggio to spice it up a bit... yep, just how you would with a regular chord! E.g. C7, Cadd9 etc.

So, in other words, if you know how to build chords, you'll know how to build arpeggios!

Using arpeggios to accent specific chord tensions/changes

This should really have a whole page dedicated to it, but I'll cover the meat 'n' veg here just for reference.

What we've looked at above is all very well, but what if the chord progression changes key? Well, we will obviously have to change the key of our solo with it. We can use arpeggios to accent certain chord changes, to effectively reinforce the key change and make sense of it musically.

When playing this way, it's better to think about it on a chord-by-chord basis. Therefore, it's a simple case of asking "which chord do I really want to accent?" - this comes down to your creative instinct.

For now, just take a listen to the backing track below, starting in the key of B minor and ending on the tonic of D major, incidentally B minor's relative major chord (more on this another time!!)

>> Click to hear

When writing a solo for this track, I felt the A7 chord (which I'll point out in a sec if you're unsure) marks a slight shift in the direction of the melody back to a new tonic of D major (the chord it ends on), so I would naturally place something on that A7 chord to reinforce this change of musical direction.

...and in the context of this lesson, I'll use an arpeggio!

To really accent this A7 chord, I'm going to play it's arpeggio equivalent - an A7 arpeggio. This will really define the chord. I'm also going to add an extra tone into the A7 chord/arpeggio - the 9th (aka the 9th tone in the major scale).

That means the tones we need to pull from the associated A7 scale are - Root (1), 3rd (3), fifth (5), dominant/flat 7th (b7) and 9th (9 or 2 - both effectively mean the same)

Take a look at the scale below. This is not the scale used in the solo, it's just the scale associated with the chord/arpeggio we want to create! It's therefore an A7 major scale (the dominant 7th makes it that).

Just like before, we're going to narrow down that full scale to only the tones that make up our chord/arpeggio, then in the last frame in the sequence below we narrow down even further ready for fingering.

Click diagram to hear the arpeggio from the last frame in the sequence

So if we return to that backing track, we can apply the A7add9 arpeggio to define that A7 chord I talked about. The red numbers in the tab below show where the A7add9 arpeggio was added - play it and observe your fingering on the fretboard - see how it has been pulled from that scale above?...

Click tab to hear

Here's the backing track again for you to play around with...

>> Click to hear

I'm hoping that, rather than simply learning parrot fashion (i.e. learning only the examples I've shown and not experimenting yourself), you've now got a process you can use for identifying those places in solos to insert arpeggios. You should also know how to pull the arpeggios you want right out of the larger associated scales.

If you've come away slightly confused, you probably went through this lesson prematurely. You really need to know how scales and patterns work before you can start pulling arpeggios from them. The Guitar Scale Mastery Course is by far the best resource for this.

Anyway, thank you for your time and patience - it's a lot to take in.

See you soon!

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