Arpeggios for the Modern Guitarist: The Complete Guide, Including Theory, Patterns, Techniques and Applications Paperback – November 1, 2008

This is an excellent instruction booklet on arpeggios by Stephen Rogouski (aka Stephen Ross).In brief, an "arpeggio" is the sounding of the notes in a chord individually, one after the other, perhaps spanning more than one octave. You can hold a chord shape to play an arpeggio; but what you really want to do is train your fingers to play arpeggio patterns. This skill will greatly improve your ability to solo throughout the changing chords of a song.Of course, in designing this book, Stephen Ross had to make some choices about the entry-level skills and knowledge of his target audience. I would say that this book is for "advanced" players. The book does not even have an introduction to arpeggios - - - it just assumes that that you already know what an arpeggio is. Similarly, the book seems to assume that you are already familiar with keys (the notes in every key), chord construction (the notes in any chord), the notes on the fretboard (that is, you immediately know where every note is). I would like to see two to four introductory pages added to the front of this book - - - briefly outlining the knowledge and skills you will require before starting the book.While the book provides sheet music for guitar, it also provides music notation in tablature (TAB) directly beneath the sheet music. Therefore, you don't need to read music to use this book. While providing both sheet music and tab should be enough for most folks, I think it would have been great if he had also represented the arpeggio patterns in a neck diagram (like they do in Scales and Modes in the Beginning), so it is possible to visualize the pattern all at once. The book does this only twice. I suppose the interested student might benefit by drawing his or her own neck patterns.My favorite part of the book (which makes it worth the cost all by itself) is the arpeggio exercises for playing one key right after another, in order around the Circle of Fifths (e.g., Key of C, Key of G, Key of D, Key of A, Key of E, etc.). This is a very powerful training tool: you will learn the Circle of Fifths, you will learn the guitar chords for any key, and you will learn the arpeggio patterns for any key. Play this exercise about 1000 times, and you should be ready to get on the tour bus.Table of Contents:- How to Practice Arpeggios- Triad Arpeggios- Seventh Chord Arpeggios- Extended Chords (9ths, 11ths, 13ths)- Altered Dominant Arpeggios- Tapping Arpeggios- Arpeggios and String Skipping- Key Transposition- Arpeggio Examples- Guitar Notation LegendAlso check out the following training DVD by Rusty Cooley: Rusty Cooley Arpeggio Madness3 Dvd Set.

I teach and play guitar and already have a good grasp of arpeggios, but teaching them to someone can be tricky since it is a rather complex subject with a lot of potential variations. I like how this book groups and organizes the arpeggios with just the essentials that you need to get started and build to advance arpeggio playing.It has one string arpeggios, 2 string, 3 string, and then building to your full arpeggios shapes for utilizing 4, 5, and 6 string arpeggios; they are all grouped in order with each position/inversion as well as classified by the basic triad family (major, minor, diminished, and augmented).Then it goes into seventh chord arpeggios (major seventh, dominant major, minor seventh, half diminished/minor 7 flat 5, full diminished 7) and then extended chord arpeggios (9th chords, 11th chords, 13th chords, altered chords, etc.)No other book I've come across does it so concisely and in such an easy to understand way. This to me is a top 3 guitar book. If you want to learn how to shred with arpeggios, this is the book!

I have actually bough thtis book twice. Once many years ago and once a month or 2 ago. I lost the first one in a move and loved it so much I had to buy another.

I found this very tedious and difficult. Really for an advanced player who is a genius for memorization. Not helpful as how to apply to solos.

good practice book. audio tracks included.

I enjoyed this book. Not only did it show lots of forms and patterns, but great examples on how to apply them. Recommend to anyone looking to take their guitar playing to the next level.

Not a good book for learning arpeggios. There is no real theory or explanation. Just arpeggio runs, no why or how, no guidance etc. Poorly done.

Nice content but pretty general. Good content for beginners but lacks the connection to tie it into really jamming out. Will have to revisit, maybe I'm missing something. Shredding with Paganini and Bach were much better and provided more depth.