6 AWESOME Arpeggios for Spanish Classical Guitar

In this blog post, I'd like to discuss the classical guitar technique called arpeggio and show you 6 uniquely different arpeggio patterns from the classical guitar repertoire to help develop your right hand technique and make you a better fingerstyle guitarist no matter what style you play.

What is an Arpeggio?

An arpeggio is a musical technique that involves playing the notes of a chord individually, rather than simultaneously. It is derived from the Italian word "arpeggiare," which means "to play on a harp." Arpeggios are commonly used in all styles of music to add texture, movement, and melodic interest.

2 Types of Arpeggios for Guitarists

Although technically arpeggios are simply chords played one note at a time, for fingerstyle, classical or Spanish guitar players, we tend to be thinking of right hand technique when we talk about arpeggios. For example, this is one way to play a C major arpeggio:

Ex. 1

But in the above example we are involving the left hand as much as the right hand. However, when classical guitarists practice arpeggios, they're usually doing something like this:

Ex. 2We can clearly see the difference when it's written out. Although both examples are arpeggiations of a C chord, the 2nd example is primarily where the classical guitarist goes when asked to play arpeggios. This way of playing an arpeggio really involves the right hand most of all, while we hold a static chord shape in the left hand. This is what we mean when we refer to arpeggio technique. 

Free Strokes or Rest Strokes?

There's multiple ways to do anything on the guitar, but when it comes to right hand arpeggio technique, we typically play free strokes (which means our fingers don't land on a neighboring string after the stroke) with the index (i), middle (m) and ring (a) fingers, while the thumb may play a free stroke or a rest stroke. We can actually achieve a little more security in the right hand by playing arpeggios using thumb rest strokes, but it's not always practical to do so. 

In Example 2 above (a pattern which we call the double arpeggio), I would suggest playing thumb rest strokes when striking strings 5 and 6, and a free stroke when playing the 4th string while all the other fingers should play free strokes throughout the pattern. This is typical arpeggio technique for Spanish guitar style playing, and the main reason why we would play a thumb free stroke on the 4th string is because it may get in the way of playing the following string in the arpeggio pattern.

Surprising Your Fingers - Six Great Arpeggio Patterns

Once we have a fairly good command of the "common" arpeggio movements (the forward arpeggio, the reverse arpeggio, and the double arpeggio), what we should do to develop our technique further is to "surprise" our fingers by changing up the pattern to make it more irregular and weird. We can find crazy patterns in all types of music, and in the following examples I'd like to give you 6 of my favorite ones from actual classical guitar studies. In each of these examples, I have removed the chord (left hand) so that we can concentrate on our ultimate purpose: refining our right hand technnique.

1. Giuliani's Allegro Pattern

There are many classical guitar studies with the name Allegro, but by far the most common Giuliani study by that name features this arpeggio which I think serves as a great entryway into "mixed up" arpeggio patterns:

2. Cacassi's Etude no. 2 in E minor pattern

One of my all time favorite composers of studies for classical guitar is Matteo Carcassi. He wrote some beautiful and very helpful pieces that continue to challenge my fingers. In this study in E minor, we see a pattern that spans 2 full measures and gives us a great workout for the ring (a) finger:

3. Leo Brouwer's 1st pattern from Estudio Sencillo #6

A very interesting and tricky arpeggio can be found in Leo Brouwer's Estudio Sencillo #6 which itself is comprised of two patterns that require our a-m-i fingers to toggle between adjacent sets of strings. In the 1st pattern we also have a challenging thumb exercise as the first and last notes of the pattern are the same string played with the thumb. This means we have to quickly "double up" on that string to keep the pattern going without pausing:

4. The 2nd pattern from Estudio Sencillo #6

The 2nd pattern of the same study is a little more manageable but still has us traveling between "sets" of strings with the same fingers:

5. The "Villa-Lobos Pattern" from Etude no. 1 by Heitor Villa-Lobos

One of the greatest - if not THE greatest - arpeggios of all time for all nylon string guitarists is the arpeggio from Villa-Lobos' famous classical guitar study Etude no. 1. This bizarre pattern has us traversing ALL the strings of the guitar in a staggered, skipping pattern that is sure to cause some confusion for your fingers (exactly what we need!). The quick exchange of the ring (a) and middle (m) fingers in the middle pattern is a great ring finger exercise not unlike what we saw in Carcassi's Em study. The ring finger is the weaker finger for most of us so it is well worth giving that finger a little more exercise. (The pinky of the right hand is so weak we don't even use it, except in the case of the flamenco technique called rasgueo):

6. The "Triplets in 3 String Sets" pattern:

I love this arpeggio pattern and I very often insert it into the chords of the Villa-Lobos study. This one is great because we have to continually be moving to a new set of 3 strings (not unlike Estudio #6 but harder!) and we have to repeatedly play the a-m-i movement which is difficult due to the weakness of that ring finger. The ring finger has to know where the next string is and you're not allowed to look! This is a great practice:

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the different kinds of combinations and variations you can do just on the six strings of the guitar. We should always be "tripping up" our fingers with something new, but don't forget to keep your foundations strong by doing maintenance on the "regular" movements we make most often. For example, check out this Spanish guitar study I do everyday to perfect my right hand technique using a very familiar pattern (a different Allegro!). 

 And watch my video tutorial below to see demonstrations of these 6 awesome arpeggio patterns in action:

 If you'd like the guitar tabs for these 6 patterns (plus 5 more!) click here.