What exactly is an "arpeggio"?

Individually pick each note in quick succession, I believe.

Yup, Vink is basically right. A chord is strummed quick enough that all notes pretty much ring at once. An arpeggio is basically all the notes in the chord a little slower.

It doesn't necessary have to be in quick succession. An arpegio is just chord tones played one at a time and can be played in various ways, fast, slow, swept legatto, staccato (spelling?). Just hold a chord and play each note one at a time you would be playing it arpegio style but the more common way to use it is to play like you would a scale shape so for example an A7 (1, 3, 5, b7) starting 5th fret 6th string..

E: 5
A: 4 - 7
D: 5 - 7
G: 6
B: 5 - 8
E: 5

Lee

An arpeggio is a 'broken chord'. If you strum a chord one string at a time, you get an arpeggio... but that's not the way people practice arpeggios.

The way to practice them is to play all the notes that could be in the chord - chord fingerings leave some out in certain octaves because of the way the fingerboard is laid out. For example, you could do this for C major:

---------------8-
-------------8---
-----------9-----
--------10-------
---7-10----------
-8---------------


That's almost the E-form barre chord at the 8th fret - but since you can't finger a chord with two notes on the same string, the barre chord misses one of the E notes (on the 7th fret of the 5th string); the arpeggio pattern doesn't.

An arpeggio is a 'broken chord'. If you strum a chord one string at a time, you get an arpeggio... but that's not the way people practice arpeggios.

The way to practice them is to play all the notes that could be in the chord - chord fingerings leave some out in certain octaves because of the way the fingerboard is laid out. For example, you could do this for C major:

---------------8-
-------------8---
-----------9-----
--------10-------
---7-10----------
-8---------------


That's almost the E-form barre chord at the 8th fret - but since you can't finger a chord with two notes on the same string, the barre chord misses one of the E notes (on the 7th fret of the 5th string); the arpeggio pattern doesn't.

I noticed that when I searched cyberfret.com...They mentioned that sometimes there are 2 note on the same string...so you just don't play the extra note or is there some "magical" way to play it?

They also said that sometimes the chord notes aren't played in order. Wouldn't that just be regular old picking?

Thanks

An arpeggio is a 'broken chord'. If you strum a chord one string at a time, you get an arpeggio... but that's not the way people practice arpeggios.

The way to practice them is to play all the notes that could be in the chord - chord fingerings leave some out in certain octaves because of the way the fingerboard is laid out. For example, you could do this for C major:

---------------8-
-------------8---
-----------9-----
--------10-------
---7-10----------
-8---------------


That's almost the E-form barre chord at the 8th fret - but since you can't finger a chord with two notes on the same string, the barre chord misses one of the E notes (on the 7th fret of the 5th string); the arpeggio pattern doesn't.

I noticed that when I searched cyberfret.com...They mentioned that sometimes there are 2 note on the same string...so you just don't play the extra note or is there some "magical" way to play it?

They also said that sometimes the chord notes aren't played in order. Wouldn't that just be regular old picking?

ThanksJust because you're arpeggiating doesn't necessarily mean you have to hold the shape of the chord. Sometimes you'll play an argeggio like you would play a scale.

I will go on a limb and someone tell me if I am wrong.
Arpeggios don't have to have the notes played in any order.
Examples are:
House of the Rising Sun
an even better example:
Dust in the Wind or Landslide
if I am right all three of these songs are mostly arpeggios but especcially in the last two songs the notes are not played in order (lowest note to highest or visa versa)

I will go on a limb and someone tell me if I am wrong.
Arpeggios don't have to have the notes played in any order.

an even better example:
Dust in the Wind

I think Dust in the Wind uses a "travis style" alternate bass-treble picking style. I thought that an Arpeggio goes from the lower notes to the higher notes in the chord.

From cyberfret.com:
Often when talking about an arpeggio on the guitar, there is more involved than just taking a basic chord form and picking out the individual notes. First lets look at a basic D major chord.
D
E:---2--(F#)-----
B:---3--(D)------
G:---2--(A)------
D:---0--(D)------
A:---------------
E:---------------

Sure, I could just play those notes one at a time, and that is done all of the time in thousands of songs. But if I look at the notes that make up a D major chord, and put them in order starting with D.....I have the notes D, F#, and A. But if I was to just play the notes of that basic D major chord, they are not in order. Starting with the 4th string I have a D, then an A, D, F#. Often when playing an arpeggio, you want to play all of the notes in order and not skip any. That means that sometimes you will have 2 notes on the same string. Something that isn't possible if you are playing all of the notes at once.

Here is a basic D major arpeggio on the first 4 strings. You are not going to hold down your fingers on more than one note at a time. You are just going to play each note individually and not as a chord. So here you are thinking melodically rather than just thinking about arpeggiating the notes in a basic D chord form.
D F# A D F#
E:---------------2--
B:------------3-----
G:---------2--------
D:---0--4-----------
A:------------------
E:------------------

So the best way for you to think of an arpeggio is this. An arpeggio is all of the note possibilities of a chord played individually in a particular area of the neck. Arpeggios can definitely span multiple positions, but you are still playing the notes of a chord in order.

Here is a D major arpeggio in 2nd position. In this arpeggio form you are actually starting on an F# note. Why? Because this is the lowest note possibility of a D chord in this position. Again, a D chord contains the notes D, F#, and A. So this is all of the Ds, F#s and As in 2nd position.
F# A D F# A D F# A
E:--------------------2--5---
B:-----------------3---------
G:--------------2------------
D:-----------4---------------
A:--------5------------------
E:--2--5---------------------

Thanks mikespe,
So i was completely wrong, But i have learned something today,

Here's the link for the full article if you want it. I should have posted it with my previous post:

http://www.cyberfret.com/arpeggios/primer/index.php

I think House of the Rising Sun us a good example of appregio use.

I am more concernd with how to pronounce appregio.

Is it "Ap-rah-zhi-o", or "App-ray-gee-o"

or soemthing else?

ar-PEZH-ee-oh

Could someone provide a link to what these should shound like? I really do not understand what makes these different that picking the notes in order fast? Why does it deserve it's own name.

Also, when reading tab how do you know what an arpeggio is?

Thanks