January 24, 2025 • 28 mins
In this episode of The Harmonious Blacksmith, we dive deep into the world of arpeggios, a cornerstone concept in music theory that every music student, theorist, and music theory enthusiast should master. Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced musician, understanding the mechanics of arpeggios is crucial for improving your musical technique, improvisation skills, and overall musicianship.
We’ll break down what an arpeggio is, how it differs from basic chords, and the role it plays in creating movement and emotion in classical music, jazz, and contemporary compositions. From major and minor arpeggios to more complex patterns like diminished and augmented arpeggios, this episode covers it all. We also explore the importance of arpeggio fingerings, voicings, and progressions in both performance and composition.
If you're passionate about music theory, harmony, or just love exploring the inner workings of music, this episode will help you unlock the full potential of your arpeggio practice. Tune in for expert insights, helpful tips, and a deeper understanding of one of music’s most essential building blocks.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF THIS PODCAST AND MUSIC EDUCATION!
Sincerely, Kevin Patrick Fleming
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (00:56):
was the Spanish piece Asturias by Isaac Albaniz,
the great Spanish composer bornin 1860 in Spain.
He wrote this piece in the early1890s, and it was actually
originally written for piano.
Back then, Spanish composerswere on a really nationalistic
(01:21):
flair in their composition.
So even piano composers and evencomposers writing in Welcome
(01:43):
back to The HarmoniousBlacksmith, everybody.
This is now season two, and thisis episode two of season two,
episode 12 overall.
I am your host, Kevin PatrickFleming.
Oh, there they are.
(02:03):
There's my peach.
What up, peach?
What up, peach?
Let's go.
I have a really fun episodetoday, and today's episode is
going to be all about one of myfavorite and most fun and
creative concepts in musictheory, arpeggios.
(02:30):
So what is an arpeggio?
An arpeggio is a melodicsequence of notes that come
directly and only from triadsand chords.
So let's break that down alittle bit.
When we describe things asmelodic, remember all the way
(02:53):
back to my definition of melodyin episode one of this podcast,
which to paraphrase wasbasically that melodies are a
sequence of notes played or sungsung one at a time that create a
main tune or the main thematicmaterial of music.
(03:14):
But now that you guys havegraduated far past episode one,
it's okay for me to add thedetail that when we describe
something as melodic, it reallydoesn't mean it's always the
main tune.
We can have multiple melodiesgoing on in music.
There's even melodic bass lineswhere you have a bass line that
(03:35):
takes over some main thematicmaterial, even though it's not
necessarily the main theme ofthe music.
I just wanted to clear all thatup.
So when we talk about melodicgoing forward, we're really just
talking about a string of notesconnected together, played or
sung one note at a time thatcreates some sort of tuneful
(03:56):
sounding sequence.
But when we refer to somethingin a piece of music as the
melody, that's when we'rereferring to the main tune of a
music so really it's adifferentiation between saying
something is melodic kind ofdescribing it as melodic as
opposed to saying in this tunethis is the melody so i just
(04:20):
wanted to make that distinctionso there's no confusion going
forward so now getting back toarpeggios arpeggios are in fact
generally melodic gestures andlike i said they come from
triads and chords.
And of course, where do triadsand chords come from?
Ding, ding, ding! They come fromscales.
(04:44):
Everything comes from scales.
No matter how advanced I get inmusic theory concept, it is
always going to be rooted inscales.
And that is something that ifyou've been listening the whole
time, you already know.
So in order to understand fullyhow arpeggios work, we need to
go back to our rules of diatonicscales.
(05:05):
in order to understand where thearpeggios come from.
So recall that diatonic scalesgo through every single letter
of the music alphabet, neverskip a letter, and they never
repeat a letter.
So you always get A, B, C, D, E,F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B,
C, D, E, F, G, et cetera, etcetera.
(05:28):
And at some point, we turn thatinto scale degrees to create
paradigms for keys, right?
So that it can transcend keys,and we can just use the same
numbers over and over again torepresent the order of a scale.
So I'm explaining all of thisbecause you need to understand
the following groupings in orderto understand the patterns that
(05:52):
arpeggios come under.
And those groupings are that nomatter what key you're in, no
matter how many sharps, nofollows.
ACE, BDF, CEG, DFA, EGB, FAC,GBD, and back to ACE.
(06:18):
In my very first semester as afreshman music performance
major, our theory teacher madeus rattle all of those off
really quickly with no breath inbetween so that it was down pat
and we had it locked away in ourbrain.
I do recommend that you do thesame.
This is the kind of thing youcould do when you're waiting in
(06:40):
a line, when you have a TV inthe background that you're
watching, or just anything whereyou can do this.
You need to be able to go A, C,E, B, D, F, C, E, G, D, F, A, E,
G, B, F, A, C, G, B, D, A, C, E.
You could have six sharps inyour key as an F sharp major,
for example.
And guess what?
Those triads are still going tobe spelled exactly the same.
(07:03):
There's just going to be a lotof sharps in there.
you could have five flats in akey going the other way on the
circle of fifths.
And those triads are still goingto be spelled exactly that way.
They're just going to have flatson some of the letters.
So now we can also turn thatinto scale degrees so that we
can transcend keys a little biteasier.
(07:25):
And that would sound as follows.
So the following scale degreeswill go together if you recall
for an arpeggio or a triad or achord.
1-3-5, 2-4-6, 3-5-7, 4-6-1,5-7-2, 6-1-3, 7-2-4, and back to
(07:46):
1-3-5.
Okay, so now let's have a littlefun by putting all this
knowledge into motion.
And so what I'm going to do, I'mgoing to break down the key of C
major, good old key of C major,on the guitar and explain and
play arpeggios for you.
(08:07):
So of course we're going tostart with the C major scale on
guitar, which sounds like this.
And as we know, it would bespelled C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.
Remember diatonic scales, theyinclude every letter and they
(08:27):
don't skip any.
And then as we know, the triadsthat turn into the chords are
based on the skipping principle.
And our chords in the key of Cmajor, as a reminder, are going
to be the one chord is C major.
Okay.
Two chord is D minor.
Three chord is E minor.
Four chord is F major.
Five chord is G major.
(08:48):
Six chord is A minor.
Seven chord is B diminished.
And then we're back to C.
And now for the arpeggios in thekey of C major.
We're going to start with that Cmajor chord, which consists of
one, three, and five.
(09:08):
And that is your first arpeggio.
And then D minor is going to be2, 4, 6.
E minor is going to be 3, 5, 7.
F major is 4, 6, and 1.
G major is 5, 7, and 2.
(09:28):
A minor is going to be 6, 1, and3.
B diminished is going to be 7,2, and 4.
And then we're back to 1, 3, and5.
So when I string those arpeggiostogether, it sounds like this.
(09:58):
And just to give you a glimpseon how far we can go with that,
if you recall extended harmonyand how it works, if you want a
seventh chord or a ninth chord,for example, you take the three
triad notes and then you justadd extra thirds on top of it.
So a seventh chord is going tohave four pitches, a ninth chord
is going to have five, etcetera, et cetera.
(10:20):
And those are notes you can alsouse in the arpeggio.
So let me give you an example.
By starting with C major, weknew that one 1-3-5 is the
original triadic arpeggio, butif we want a seventh chord, we
would just add one more.
(10:41):
And particularly, it's going tobe the note that was already in
the key.
Okay, so in this case, it's a B.
So my C arpeggio would be C, E,G, and then a B on top, which
makes it a major seventh chord.
And if I wanted a ninth, I couldkeep going and add one more.
C, E, G, B, D.
(11:03):
Okay.
and so on and so forth.
So I could go all the way up toa 13th.
So I could go C, E, G, B, D, F,and then up to A, And there's no
such thing as the 15th becauseyou're back to the root note and
everything repeats again.
All right.
So now let's get into the funstuff, which is the musical
(11:28):
examples.
I'm going to start with thesimplest one I could think of
that goes way back, way backinto the mid 20th century.
And it was a tune I always lovedhearing by the Grateful Dead.
Yep.
I'm an old deadhead.
It's revealed.
But this one is a very simpledisplay of arpeggios and this
(11:50):
was called love light and thebeginning of it sounded like
this now this might not havebeen the key of the original i'm
just going to go with c sincethat's what we started with but
the riff would go like this soSo that's just a I chord and a
(12:14):
IV chord in the key of C.
So our I chord is, of course, Cmajor.
And our IV chord is F.
So when that riff in the songLove Light is being played, it's
very recognizable, first of all.
Everybody knows what song it is,yada yada.
But it starts with an arpeggioacross that C major chord, which
(12:37):
is a 1-3-5.
So he does this thing every nowand then where he slides from
the flat third to the majorthird.
I'm not going to go too far intothat right now.
It's just a clever little thingthat makes it sound slick that's
really all you need to know fornow but the main part of that is
arpeggio one three five and thenit goes to the four chord where
(13:01):
it goes four six one So 1, 3, 5,4, 6, 1.
1, 3, 5, 4, 6, 1.
This next example you shouldrecognize right away.
And as a matter of fact, I'mjust going to play it first and
see if you recognize it.
(13:26):
Did you recognize it?
If you're from my country, youdid.
That is the national anthem ofthe United States of America.
And that is one of the mostfamous arpeggios in our country.
So the beginning of the StarSpangled Banner is in fact an
arpeggio down a chord.
UNKNOWN (13:50):
So
SPEAKER_00 (13:52):
And specifically, in this case, I was playing it in
the key of E major.
Not that that's the original keyor anything.
As a matter of fact, I'm noteven sure what the original key
is, and it doesn't matter.
Because you can do this in anykey.
But I'm running down an E chord,and the scale degrees I'm
playing go as follows.
So this arpeggio actually kindof goes backwards.
(14:14):
It starts on the fifth scaledegree.
Think about the letters for an Emajor chord.
It would be E, G sharp, and B.
The arpeggio Arpeggio in thiscase starts with a B, which is
scale degree five.
Then it goes to G sharp, whichis scale degree three.
And then it goes to E, which isscale degree one.
And then it works its way back.
Then it goes back to three, backto five.
(14:36):
And then it goes back to anoctave after that.
So really it goes five, three,one, three, five, eight.
As you know, an octave can becalled eight or one.
In this case, I'm calling iteight.
So one more time.
Five, three, one, three, five,eight.
(14:59):
So I'd like to do a quickcomparison of the two examples
that I gave you, because theLove Light example that I gave
you previous is very melodic,right?
It's one note at a time, andthey're connected in legato
fashion, but it's really justone note at a time.
But when I play the StarSpangled Banner intro...
(15:25):
You can tell that I'm lettingthe notes ring over each other.
So I wanted to make sure thatyou know, even though arpeggios
are a melodic gesture often,this reflects a second style of
arpeggio, which I would reallyjust coin as legato arpeggio
style, meaning you takechords...
(15:52):
And you let the notes ringtogether, right?
As opposed to separating them.
Obviously, you can't sing thatway if you're one person.
And we're used to, in the UnitedStates, hearing the Star
Spangled Banner at the beginningof sports contests, for example.
And obviously, it's usuallysomebody singing it.
And so you can't do legatoarpeggio style when somebody's
(16:16):
singing.
So I just wanted to make thedistinction between that melodic
style...
And the legato style.
So some of you may notice thatmy intros that I perform on
guitar are often like overturesto an opera.
(16:38):
They give you information andthematic material about what's
to come in the episode, justlike an opera overture.
And in this case, I recordedAsturias, a Spanish piece.
And it's perfect because it hasall these Spanish triplet
arpeggios.
And they are, in fact, legatostyle.
So if I play them a little slow,slower and they sounded like
(17:00):
this.
And what's particularly coolabout this example is that you
do have these constant tripletarpeggios, as I said, but buried
(17:22):
in the middle of all that isthis beautiful E minor melody.
So the melody just sounds likethis.
Okay.
Moving around while you'regetting an arpeggio sound, and
(17:43):
really it's just scale degrees 5and scale degree 5 again.
You're starting with a 1, andthen there's a 5, and then
there's the octave of the 5.
And then the melody moves.
So really just with a couple offifths in there to sort of imply
an E minor chord.
UNKNOWN (18:06):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (18:15):
So that's kind of a unique way of doing it.
And that's the point.
Despite the fact that we startoff with one, three, five, two,
four, six, et cetera, et cetera,you really realize that arpeggio
is powerful.
It is a way to really becreative with music.
And in my opinion, it reallyseparates the clever composers
(18:38):
from the average composers.
Speaking of clever composersthat use arpeggios, Arpeggios,
do you recognize this one?
And that is, of course, EineKleine Nachtmusik by Mozart,
(19:03):
written in 1787, near the end ofhis life.
And I'm pretty sure that's oneof the more recognizable
arpeggio melodies, probably onthe planet Earth.
So I feel the need to explainthis before breaking down this
Mozart tune.
Really, what we're sort ofevolving to in all this is that
(19:26):
arpeggios can be done in any wayyou want to.
That's the beauty.
That's the creativity.
As long as you're using thescale degrees that outline the
triads and the chords, you cando it any way you want.
When we get to Mozart's EineKleine Nachtmusik, I'm doing it
in a different key than theoriginal key just because it's
(19:47):
easier on guitar, but it worksexactly the same way.
And that way is it starts onscale degree one.
So I'm doing it in the key of CAnd it starts on scale degree 1.
And then it goes to 5.
And back to 1.
And then 5 and back to 1 again.
(20:07):
And then again.
And then it finally goes toscale degree 3.
And then it goes to the octaveof the 5.
So really what's happening thereis you're getting 1, 3, 5, 3, 1,
5, 1...
So you're getting a one, athree, and then you're getting
(20:29):
two fives.
You're getting a lower five andthe octave above it.
And so again, this is just onecreative way to do it.
So that's all on a C chord.
One, five, one, five, one, five,one, three, five.
And then it goes to the five,seven chord, the dominant seven
of the key.
(20:49):
In this case, in the key of Cwould be G7.
UNKNOWN (20:53):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (20:56):
And of course, the V7 chord is going to contain
scale degrees V, VII, II, andnow when you add a seventh on
top, it's a IV.
So you get V, VII, II, IV.
And in the case of Eine KleineNacht music, it starts on that
(21:18):
scale degree IV in the key of C,which is F.
So it goes from four, and thenit goes to two.
Four, two, four, two.
seven, two, five.
So again, just outlining thedominant seventh chord in the
(21:38):
key, the one that's alreadythere that we were almost
automatically going to use inany chord progression because
it's extremely important.
It's just Mozart did it in acharming and creative way.
So it's actually just those twochords.
It is a one chord in major, andthen it is a dominant seven It's
(22:01):
just a super charming melodybecause that's what Mozart did
his whole life.
In my opinion, his genius liesin the combination of how he
stretches out very little musicinto many, many clever and
(22:26):
beautiful things, while at thesame time, making everything so
charming that it's like theearworm of all earworms gets
stuck in your head, can't getout.
And it just gives you this fuzzyeffervescent feeling because
it's just so charming.
My goodness.
And for my last example, I'mgoing to go back to the pop and
(22:50):
rock world.
And I'll tell you this.
I actually was not thinking ofthis example until I worked on
the last one.
And isn't that what music does?
You start playing around withstuff and it reminds you of
other stuff and you can end upin a completely different place.
Tell me if you recognize thisarpeggio riff.
(23:26):
That is, of course, the pop songby Roy Orbison called Pretty
Woman, and that is a veryrecognizable riff.
I just feel like if you hearthat on the radio, on YouTube,
on any streaming that you listento, that you will immediately
recognize it as that song.
And it's straight up just anarpeggio in the key.
(23:48):
So again, I'm playing in the keyof C, but this riff starts on
the 5.
So interestingly enough, thistune...
starts on the five chord, notthe one.
So it'll start on scale degreefive.
Then he goes to seven.
Then he goes to two.
And then he goes to four.
But also in this one, he ends upgoing to six.
(24:14):
And really that could be calleda ninth chord.
A ninth chord would have fivenotes in it.
two three four five and it'sjust thirds stacked on top of
each other once again but thescale degrees would go five
seven two four six so and sorryabout my singing i'm not very
(24:38):
good singer at all not afraid toadmit it but anyway um so pretty
woman by roy orbison a verycatchy and recognizable arpeggio
tune from the popping Alright,so that concludes all my audio
examples for this episode.
(24:58):
I will say there are justthousands and thousands of
examples I could go through, andI'm sure I'm going to revisit
arpeggios eventually.
But I want to go ahead and giveyou a challenge this week in
your music listening.
The challenge is simply this.
When you're listening toanything and everything you
(25:18):
normally listen to during theweek, you don't have to change
anything.
Can you recognize when it'sarpeggio that's being played or
sung and when it's not?
So really just think of it asblack and white at this point.
It's either an arpeggio or it'snot.
So you can listen to somevocals, you know, melodies and
(25:39):
see if that's happening.
And you might go, hmm, that'snot arpeggio.
It's a melody.
Or you might go, oh, wow, thatis an arpeggio.
But you're just trying to findout if you can differentiate the
two.
Is it an arpeggio?
sound, can I tell the differencebetween an arpeggio sound and
what's not?
So if you're following theYouTube versions of my podcast,
(26:00):
please leave a comment belowthis episode and let me know
what you came up with.
Like, let me know what youlistened to and whether you
found out whether it wasarpeggio or not.
And even if you're not listeningon YouTube, if you're on Apple
or if you're on Spotify orAmazon Music or something,
there's still a function in thedescription of this episode that
(26:22):
says send us a text please sendme a message about how this
exercise went for you like whatdid you find out about it and
did you learn from it and lastlythere will also be a link in the
description that says supportthe show i do appreciate the
support i'm working hard tocreate all this content for you
(26:42):
if you would just click on thatand check out the options for me
it's greatly appreciated thankyou so much for your support and
thank you for supporting me Butnow it's time for Breakdown.
(27:05):
Today's episode was all aboutarpeggios.
And by the way, the track you'relistening to while I'm speaking
right now is an originalcomposition by me and performed
by me.
It's called Lunar Dreams, andit's all arpeggios.
That's right.
(27:26):
Started it with arpeggios andended it with arpeggios.
We learned that basicallyarpeggios are outlines of triads
and chords.
We learned that arpeggios can bemelodic, but they can also be
legato.
We learned that an arpeggiocould outline just your basic
(27:52):
1-3-5 triad, or it could go asfar as extended chords like 7s,
9s, 11s, etc.
Thanks again for tuning in tothe Harmonious Blacksmith.
I do appreciate your support.
(28:14):
And I will be looking forward tocontinuing this music
exploration with all of you.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (00:56):
was the Spanish piece Asturias by Isaac Albaniz,
the great Spanish composer bornin 1860 in Spain.
He wrote this piece in the early1890s, and it was actually
originally written for piano.
Back then, Spanish composerswere on a really nationalistic
(01:21):
flair in their composition.
So even piano composers and evencomposers writing in Welcome
(01:43):
back to The HarmoniousBlacksmith, everybody.
This is now season two, and thisis episode two of season two,
episode 12 overall.
I am your host, Kevin PatrickFleming.
Oh, there they are.
(02:03):
There's my peach.
What up, peach?
What up, peach?
Let's go.
I have a really fun episodetoday, and today's episode is
going to be all about one of myfavorite and most fun and
creative concepts in musictheory, arpeggios.
(02:30):
So what is an arpeggio?
An arpeggio is a melodicsequence of notes that come
directly and only from triadsand chords.
So let's break that down alittle bit.
When we describe things asmelodic, remember all the way
(02:53):
back to my definition of melodyin episode one of this podcast,
which to paraphrase wasbasically that melodies are a
sequence of notes played or sungsung one at a time that create a
main tune or the main thematicmaterial of music.
(03:14):
But now that you guys havegraduated far past episode one,
it's okay for me to add thedetail that when we describe
something as melodic, it reallydoesn't mean it's always the
main tune.
We can have multiple melodiesgoing on in music.
There's even melodic bass lineswhere you have a bass line that
(03:35):
takes over some main thematicmaterial, even though it's not
necessarily the main theme ofthe music.
I just wanted to clear all thatup.
So when we talk about melodicgoing forward, we're really just
talking about a string of notesconnected together, played or
sung one note at a time thatcreates some sort of tuneful
(03:56):
sounding sequence.
But when we refer to somethingin a piece of music as the
melody, that's when we'rereferring to the main tune of a
music so really it's adifferentiation between saying
something is melodic kind ofdescribing it as melodic as
opposed to saying in this tunethis is the melody so i just
(04:20):
wanted to make that distinctionso there's no confusion going
forward so now getting back toarpeggios arpeggios are in fact
generally melodic gestures andlike i said they come from
triads and chords.
And of course, where do triadsand chords come from?
Ding, ding, ding! They come fromscales.
(04:44):
Everything comes from scales.
No matter how advanced I get inmusic theory concept, it is
always going to be rooted inscales.
And that is something that ifyou've been listening the whole
time, you already know.
So in order to understand fullyhow arpeggios work, we need to
go back to our rules of diatonicscales.
(05:05):
in order to understand where thearpeggios come from.
So recall that diatonic scalesgo through every single letter
of the music alphabet, neverskip a letter, and they never
repeat a letter.
So you always get A, B, C, D, E,F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B,
C, D, E, F, G, et cetera, etcetera.
(05:28):
And at some point, we turn thatinto scale degrees to create
paradigms for keys, right?
So that it can transcend keys,and we can just use the same
numbers over and over again torepresent the order of a scale.
So I'm explaining all of thisbecause you need to understand
the following groupings in orderto understand the patterns that
(05:52):
arpeggios come under.
And those groupings are that nomatter what key you're in, no
matter how many sharps, nofollows.
ACE, BDF, CEG, DFA, EGB, FAC,GBD, and back to ACE.
(06:18):
In my very first semester as afreshman music performance
major, our theory teacher madeus rattle all of those off
really quickly with no breath inbetween so that it was down pat
and we had it locked away in ourbrain.
I do recommend that you do thesame.
This is the kind of thing youcould do when you're waiting in
(06:40):
a line, when you have a TV inthe background that you're
watching, or just anything whereyou can do this.
You need to be able to go A, C,E, B, D, F, C, E, G, D, F, A, E,
G, B, F, A, C, G, B, D, A, C, E.
You could have six sharps inyour key as an F sharp major,
for example.
And guess what?
Those triads are still going tobe spelled exactly the same.
(07:03):
There's just going to be a lotof sharps in there.
you could have five flats in akey going the other way on the
circle of fifths.
And those triads are still goingto be spelled exactly that way.
They're just going to have flatson some of the letters.
So now we can also turn thatinto scale degrees so that we
can transcend keys a little biteasier.
(07:25):
And that would sound as follows.
So the following scale degreeswill go together if you recall
for an arpeggio or a triad or achord.
1-3-5, 2-4-6, 3-5-7, 4-6-1,5-7-2, 6-1-3, 7-2-4, and back to
(07:46):
1-3-5.
Okay, so now let's have a littlefun by putting all this
knowledge into motion.
And so what I'm going to do, I'mgoing to break down the key of C
major, good old key of C major,on the guitar and explain and
play arpeggios for you.
(08:07):
So of course we're going tostart with the C major scale on
guitar, which sounds like this.
And as we know, it would bespelled C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.
Remember diatonic scales, theyinclude every letter and they
(08:27):
don't skip any.
And then as we know, the triadsthat turn into the chords are
based on the skipping principle.
And our chords in the key of Cmajor, as a reminder, are going
to be the one chord is C major.
Okay.
Two chord is D minor.
Three chord is E minor.
Four chord is F major.
Five chord is G major.
(08:48):
Six chord is A minor.
Seven chord is B diminished.
And then we're back to C.
And now for the arpeggios in thekey of C major.
We're going to start with that Cmajor chord, which consists of
one, three, and five.
(09:08):
And that is your first arpeggio.
And then D minor is going to be2, 4, 6.
E minor is going to be 3, 5, 7.
F major is 4, 6, and 1.
G major is 5, 7, and 2.
(09:28):
A minor is going to be 6, 1, and3.
B diminished is going to be 7,2, and 4.
And then we're back to 1, 3, and5.
So when I string those arpeggiostogether, it sounds like this.
(09:58):
And just to give you a glimpseon how far we can go with that,
if you recall extended harmonyand how it works, if you want a
seventh chord or a ninth chord,for example, you take the three
triad notes and then you justadd extra thirds on top of it.
So a seventh chord is going tohave four pitches, a ninth chord
is going to have five, etcetera, et cetera.
(10:20):
And those are notes you can alsouse in the arpeggio.
So let me give you an example.
By starting with C major, weknew that one 1-3-5 is the
original triadic arpeggio, butif we want a seventh chord, we
would just add one more.
(10:41):
And particularly, it's going tobe the note that was already in
the key.
Okay, so in this case, it's a B.
So my C arpeggio would be C, E,G, and then a B on top, which
makes it a major seventh chord.
And if I wanted a ninth, I couldkeep going and add one more.
C, E, G, B, D.
(11:03):
Okay.
and so on and so forth.
So I could go all the way up toa 13th.
So I could go C, E, G, B, D, F,and then up to A, And there's no
such thing as the 15th becauseyou're back to the root note and
everything repeats again.
All right.
So now let's get into the funstuff, which is the musical
(11:28):
examples.
I'm going to start with thesimplest one I could think of
that goes way back, way backinto the mid 20th century.
And it was a tune I always lovedhearing by the Grateful Dead.
Yep.
I'm an old deadhead.
It's revealed.
But this one is a very simpledisplay of arpeggios and this
(11:50):
was called love light and thebeginning of it sounded like
this now this might not havebeen the key of the original i'm
just going to go with c sincethat's what we started with but
the riff would go like this soSo that's just a I chord and a
(12:14):
IV chord in the key of C.
So our I chord is, of course, Cmajor.
And our IV chord is F.
So when that riff in the songLove Light is being played, it's
very recognizable, first of all.
Everybody knows what song it is,yada yada.
But it starts with an arpeggioacross that C major chord, which
(12:37):
is a 1-3-5.
So he does this thing every nowand then where he slides from
the flat third to the majorthird.
I'm not going to go too far intothat right now.
It's just a clever little thingthat makes it sound slick that's
really all you need to know fornow but the main part of that is
arpeggio one three five and thenit goes to the four chord where
(13:01):
it goes four six one So 1, 3, 5,4, 6, 1.
1, 3, 5, 4, 6, 1.
This next example you shouldrecognize right away.
And as a matter of fact, I'mjust going to play it first and
see if you recognize it.
(13:26):
Did you recognize it?
If you're from my country, youdid.
That is the national anthem ofthe United States of America.
And that is one of the mostfamous arpeggios in our country.
So the beginning of the StarSpangled Banner is in fact an
arpeggio down a chord.
UNKNOWN (13:50):
So
SPEAKER_00 (13:52):
And specifically, in this case, I was playing it in
the key of E major.
Not that that's the original keyor anything.
As a matter of fact, I'm noteven sure what the original key
is, and it doesn't matter.
Because you can do this in anykey.
But I'm running down an E chord,and the scale degrees I'm
playing go as follows.
So this arpeggio actually kindof goes backwards.
(14:14):
It starts on the fifth scaledegree.
Think about the letters for an Emajor chord.
It would be E, G sharp, and B.
The arpeggio Arpeggio in thiscase starts with a B, which is
scale degree five.
Then it goes to G sharp, whichis scale degree three.
And then it goes to E, which isscale degree one.
And then it works its way back.
Then it goes back to three, backto five.
(14:36):
And then it goes back to anoctave after that.
So really it goes five, three,one, three, five, eight.
As you know, an octave can becalled eight or one.
In this case, I'm calling iteight.
So one more time.
Five, three, one, three, five,eight.
(14:59):
So I'd like to do a quickcomparison of the two examples
that I gave you, because theLove Light example that I gave
you previous is very melodic,right?
It's one note at a time, andthey're connected in legato
fashion, but it's really justone note at a time.
But when I play the StarSpangled Banner intro...
(15:25):
You can tell that I'm lettingthe notes ring over each other.
So I wanted to make sure thatyou know, even though arpeggios
are a melodic gesture often,this reflects a second style of
arpeggio, which I would reallyjust coin as legato arpeggio
style, meaning you takechords...
(15:52):
And you let the notes ringtogether, right?
As opposed to separating them.
Obviously, you can't sing thatway if you're one person.
And we're used to, in the UnitedStates, hearing the Star
Spangled Banner at the beginningof sports contests, for example.
And obviously, it's usuallysomebody singing it.
And so you can't do legatoarpeggio style when somebody's
(16:16):
singing.
So I just wanted to make thedistinction between that melodic
style...
And the legato style.
So some of you may notice thatmy intros that I perform on
guitar are often like overturesto an opera.
(16:38):
They give you information andthematic material about what's
to come in the episode, justlike an opera overture.
And in this case, I recordedAsturias, a Spanish piece.
And it's perfect because it hasall these Spanish triplet
arpeggios.
And they are, in fact, legatostyle.
So if I play them a little slow,slower and they sounded like
(17:00):
this.
And what's particularly coolabout this example is that you
do have these constant tripletarpeggios, as I said, but buried
(17:22):
in the middle of all that isthis beautiful E minor melody.
So the melody just sounds likethis.
Okay.
Moving around while you'regetting an arpeggio sound, and
(17:43):
really it's just scale degrees 5and scale degree 5 again.
You're starting with a 1, andthen there's a 5, and then
there's the octave of the 5.
And then the melody moves.
So really just with a couple offifths in there to sort of imply
an E minor chord.
UNKNOWN (18:06):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (18:15):
So that's kind of a unique way of doing it.
And that's the point.
Despite the fact that we startoff with one, three, five, two,
four, six, et cetera, et cetera,you really realize that arpeggio
is powerful.
It is a way to really becreative with music.
And in my opinion, it reallyseparates the clever composers
(18:38):
from the average composers.
Speaking of clever composersthat use arpeggios, Arpeggios,
do you recognize this one?
And that is, of course, EineKleine Nachtmusik by Mozart,
(19:03):
written in 1787, near the end ofhis life.
And I'm pretty sure that's oneof the more recognizable
arpeggio melodies, probably onthe planet Earth.
So I feel the need to explainthis before breaking down this
Mozart tune.
Really, what we're sort ofevolving to in all this is that
(19:26):
arpeggios can be done in any wayyou want to.
That's the beauty.
That's the creativity.
As long as you're using thescale degrees that outline the
triads and the chords, you cando it any way you want.
When we get to Mozart's EineKleine Nachtmusik, I'm doing it
in a different key than theoriginal key just because it's
(19:47):
easier on guitar, but it worksexactly the same way.
And that way is it starts onscale degree one.
So I'm doing it in the key of CAnd it starts on scale degree 1.
And then it goes to 5.
And back to 1.
And then 5 and back to 1 again.
(20:07):
And then again.
And then it finally goes toscale degree 3.
And then it goes to the octaveof the 5.
So really what's happening thereis you're getting 1, 3, 5, 3, 1,
5, 1...
So you're getting a one, athree, and then you're getting
(20:29):
two fives.
You're getting a lower five andthe octave above it.
And so again, this is just onecreative way to do it.
So that's all on a C chord.
One, five, one, five, one, five,one, three, five.
And then it goes to the five,seven chord, the dominant seven
of the key.
(20:49):
In this case, in the key of Cwould be G7.
UNKNOWN (20:53):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (20:56):
And of course, the V7 chord is going to contain
scale degrees V, VII, II, andnow when you add a seventh on
top, it's a IV.
So you get V, VII, II, IV.
And in the case of Eine KleineNacht music, it starts on that
(21:18):
scale degree IV in the key of C,which is F.
So it goes from four, and thenit goes to two.
Four, two, four, two.
seven, two, five.
So again, just outlining thedominant seventh chord in the
(21:38):
key, the one that's alreadythere that we were almost
automatically going to use inany chord progression because
it's extremely important.
It's just Mozart did it in acharming and creative way.
So it's actually just those twochords.
It is a one chord in major, andthen it is a dominant seven It's
(22:01):
just a super charming melodybecause that's what Mozart did
his whole life.
In my opinion, his genius liesin the combination of how he
stretches out very little musicinto many, many clever and
(22:26):
beautiful things, while at thesame time, making everything so
charming that it's like theearworm of all earworms gets
stuck in your head, can't getout.
And it just gives you this fuzzyeffervescent feeling because
it's just so charming.
My goodness.
And for my last example, I'mgoing to go back to the pop and
(22:50):
rock world.
And I'll tell you this.
I actually was not thinking ofthis example until I worked on
the last one.
And isn't that what music does?
You start playing around withstuff and it reminds you of
other stuff and you can end upin a completely different place.
Tell me if you recognize thisarpeggio riff.
(23:26):
That is, of course, the pop songby Roy Orbison called Pretty
Woman, and that is a veryrecognizable riff.
I just feel like if you hearthat on the radio, on YouTube,
on any streaming that you listento, that you will immediately
recognize it as that song.
And it's straight up just anarpeggio in the key.
(23:48):
So again, I'm playing in the keyof C, but this riff starts on
the 5.
So interestingly enough, thistune...
starts on the five chord, notthe one.
So it'll start on scale degreefive.
Then he goes to seven.
Then he goes to two.
And then he goes to four.
But also in this one, he ends upgoing to six.
(24:14):
And really that could be calleda ninth chord.
A ninth chord would have fivenotes in it.
two three four five and it'sjust thirds stacked on top of
each other once again but thescale degrees would go five
seven two four six so and sorryabout my singing i'm not very
(24:38):
good singer at all not afraid toadmit it but anyway um so pretty
woman by roy orbison a verycatchy and recognizable arpeggio
tune from the popping Alright,so that concludes all my audio
examples for this episode.
(24:58):
I will say there are justthousands and thousands of
examples I could go through, andI'm sure I'm going to revisit
arpeggios eventually.
But I want to go ahead and giveyou a challenge this week in
your music listening.
The challenge is simply this.
When you're listening toanything and everything you
(25:18):
normally listen to during theweek, you don't have to change
anything.
Can you recognize when it'sarpeggio that's being played or
sung and when it's not?
So really just think of it asblack and white at this point.
It's either an arpeggio or it'snot.
So you can listen to somevocals, you know, melodies and
(25:39):
see if that's happening.
And you might go, hmm, that'snot arpeggio.
It's a melody.
Or you might go, oh, wow, thatis an arpeggio.
But you're just trying to findout if you can differentiate the
two.
Is it an arpeggio?
sound, can I tell the differencebetween an arpeggio sound and
what's not?
So if you're following theYouTube versions of my podcast,
(26:00):
please leave a comment belowthis episode and let me know
what you came up with.
Like, let me know what youlistened to and whether you
found out whether it wasarpeggio or not.
And even if you're not listeningon YouTube, if you're on Apple
or if you're on Spotify orAmazon Music or something,
there's still a function in thedescription of this episode that
(26:22):
says send us a text please sendme a message about how this
exercise went for you like whatdid you find out about it and
did you learn from it and lastlythere will also be a link in the
description that says supportthe show i do appreciate the
support i'm working hard tocreate all this content for you
(26:42):
if you would just click on thatand check out the options for me
it's greatly appreciated thankyou so much for your support and
thank you for supporting me Butnow it's time for Breakdown.
(27:05):
Today's episode was all aboutarpeggios.
And by the way, the track you'relistening to while I'm speaking
right now is an originalcomposition by me and performed
by me.
It's called Lunar Dreams, andit's all arpeggios.
That's right.
(27:26):
Started it with arpeggios andended it with arpeggios.
We learned that basicallyarpeggios are outlines of triads
and chords.
We learned that arpeggios can bemelodic, but they can also be
legato.
We learned that an arpeggiocould outline just your basic
(27:52):
1-3-5 triad, or it could go asfar as extended chords like 7s,
9s, 11s, etc.
Thanks again for tuning in tothe Harmonious Blacksmith.
I do appreciate your support.
(28:14):
And I will be looking forward tocontinuing this music
exploration with all of you.
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