- Lessons:
Note: This article assumes that the read,brer has a grasp of basic major and minor chord construction. If not, please see my article Basic Chord Construction. I have also written an article on major arpeggios which will further improve your playing.
If you are trying to make your solos sound more interesting, break free of scale runs, complement every chord you play over, and choose just the right notes for your solos, arpeggios and their inversions are a great place to start.
An arpeggio is a chord played note for note. In other words, if you strum an open A minor chord once, letting all the strings ring out and all the notes ring into one another, that is NOT an arpeggio.
However, if you play the notes of the A minor chord, one note at a time, then that is an arpeggio.
Inversions
Using chord and arpeggio inversions might sound tricky, but it is actually very simple.
A chord or arpeggio inversion occurs when the root note is not the lowest note.
Using the example below (three string A minor arpeggios in 1st inversion, 2nd inversion, and root position), you can see that in the root position, the note A (14th fret) is the lowest note; in the first inversion the note C (5th fret) is the lowest note; and in the second inversion the note E (9th fret) is the lowest note.
Note: Even though the lowest note changes, the arpeggio is still A minor because the notes are still those which make up A minor.
To hear the magic, try sweep picking though these patterns over your favourite A minor chord. If you're not familiar with the sweep picking technique, please see my article Introduction to Sweep Picking.