How to Solo With Arpeggios

Video Cliffs:

0:08 – Musical Demo

0:59 – Intro

1:54 – Step 1: Determine the Scalar Framework

5:00 – Step 2: Determine the Triad Layout for each Chord in the Progression

11:26 – Step 3: Connect the Arpeggio Pathways Together by Using Scale Notes

12:59 – How to Practice this Arpeggio Stuff

Relevant Lessons:

Extra Stuff for Full Access Members! In addition to everything else that is included with a Full Access Membership, many lessons include “Full Access Extras”.

Full Access Member “Video Backing Tracks” for this lesson: Backing Track Video containing the same music and fretboard diagrams as you see in the demo from the lesson video above. This video will allow you to practice soloing within the key of B minor over a rhythm section while simultaneously targeting the chord tones/playing the arpeggios of the underlying chords.

This “chord tone targeting/arpeggio practice” video is one of HUNDREDS that can be found in the member’s vault. This particular video is just specific to this particular lesson.

The video is around 9 1/2 minutes long and can be slowed down to half speed for practice purposes.

Soloing With Arpeggios

If you are into very melodic sounding playing, then arpeggio soloing may be right up your alley!

The best way to connect your lead playing with the underlying rhythm chords is to play chord tones of the underlying chord as that particular chord is occurring in the progression.

So if you have a chord progression such as:

Bm – A – D – Em

You would look at the individual notes of each chord, and you would attempt to play those specific notes as each respective chord is playing in the rhythm section.

Let’s look at the individual notes for each of these 4 chords:

B minor (Bm): B D F#

B D F# A major (A): A C# E

A C# E D major (D): D F# A

D F# A E minor (Em): E G B

The goal of chord tone targeting is to play chord tones of the underlying chords as opposed to just running through scales over top of the progression.

Arpeggio soloing is essentially the same thing, but rather then just targeting a single chord tone as a chord change occurs, you instead play several chord tones in a row over each underlying chord.

So as the B minor chord is occurring, you may create an arpeggio lead that goes like:

B – D – F# – B – D – F#

By playing an arpeggio of a chord over top of the underlying chord, you are following specific pathways.

Many intermediate guitarists plateau at the point where they simply run up and down scales that they know, and as a result their playing gets stale. They find themselves playing the same licks over and over, regardless of what the underlying chords in the progression happen to be.

Following arpeggio pathways is an excellent way to break that plateau if you happen to be stuck there currently.

I generally follow a 3-step process:

Step 1 – Determine the Scalar Framework

There are many different scalar frameworks that you could improvise or compose a solo in. However, you should let the chord progression dictate which one you should use.

Let’s take an example chord progression:

Bm7 – A7 – D – Em9

When attempting to figure out the key that a particular chord sequence is in, it helps to ignore the extensions and just look at the major or minor quality of each chord.

This chord sequence can therefore be reduced to:

Bm – A – D – Em

These chords are all part of the key of B minor, which can be verified by looking at the circle of fifths:

Therefore the overall scalar framework that you would use to solo over this progression would be the B minor scale.

Spanned across the entire fretboard, it looks like this:

However, you are sick of soloing with scales…and that’s exactly what the purpose of this lesson is!

Step 2 – Determine the Triad Layout for Each Chord in the Progression

If you are familiar with the CAGED system, then it should be very easy for you to figure out the triad layout for each chord in the progression. Let’s take a look at them:

The B minor chord (within the Scalar Framework of B minor):

The A major chord (within the Scalar Framework of B minor):

The D major chord (within the Scalar Framework of B minor):



The E minor chord (within the Scalar Framework of B minor):

As each chord occurs in the progression, you can follow these green highlighted pathways.

These are your arpeggio pathways, and when followed they are extremely melodic sounding.

Step 3 – Connect the Arpeggio Pathways Together by Using Scale Notes

This is where you can get really creative…

You don’t need to stick to the arpeggio pathways 100%, just as you don’t need to walk up and down a scale note-for-note in order to improvise using a scale (or multiple scales).

When it comes to arpeggio soloing, maybe stick to the arpeggio pathways 85% of the time, and hit scale notes the other 15% of the time (ie. Play notes that are still part of the scalar framework, but are not part of the arpeggio path).

Obviously this 85%/15% thing is just a made up figure, but take a look at the demo in the video above to get an idea of what I’m talking about. In the demo, I stick mostly to arpeggio pathways, but I still throw in some scalar runs here and there.

Well, that’s gonna do it for today’s lesson.

Enjoy yo-self fool!