Arpeggios: the missing lesson?

Jonathan Shacklock · Post by **Jonathan Shacklock** » 7 Jan 2007 9:16 am

If you study classical guitar or piano one of the first things they hand you is a scales and arpeggios exercise book. I'm curious as to why none of the pedal steel books or courses seem to contain arpeggio excercises as a method of teaching blocking, intervals, muscle memory, chord theory, stamina, melody etc. Are traditional arpeggio exercises something that simply don't translate to the instrument in a useful way?

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 7 Jan 2007 12:49 pm

Arpeggios and scales are essential to learn and study on the steel just like any other instrument. If you put out a book of them you might sell 3 or 4 copies ! The market for steel instructional material is primarily lick based so its coming from a different place than instruments with a longer history . What many players do that are into it enough is learn where the notes are and then go to jazz study books or classical systems. The violin is very close to the same range as the E9 tuning so there is no shortage of available information.
A popular way to go is to get some of the fantastic transciptions available of the greats that will teach you about arpeggios, scales and how the pedals interact. Or you can learn the licks of your favorites by ear which has multiple benefits. But it is up to the student to figure out how the phrases apply to general musical knowlege.

Here is something I posted last week about a steel players very first lesson:

Bob Hoffnar wrote:One sheet for E9

Key of G

basic triad string grips:
10,8,6
8,6,5
6,5,4
5,4,3

Harmionized scale using strings 3 and 5, A and B pedals only

Next to the steps up the harimonized scale I note what chord is formed at that point.
Such as:
fret 3 no pedals in all basic grips= G
fret 3 a/b pedals in all basic grips=C
fret 5 a/b pedals in all basic grips= D
fret 8 no pedals in all basic grips=C

and on up the neck

Then make a note that harmonized scales on strings
3 and 5
5 and 6
10 and 6
with a/b pedals are basicly the same.

Then I tab a short melody using strings 3 and 5. For guys that know it the solo from "Together Again" is a good one. Or I tab out a nursery rhyme just to show them that there is music hiding in those scales and chord grips.

Substitute "arpeggio" for the words "chord grips" and you have a basic scales and arpeggio study for the very first lesson.

Doug Seymour · Post by **Doug Seymour** » 7 Jan 2007 2:52 pm

Good post, Bob! Do you think if I met you in St Louis this year, like we did in '04, that Bobbe might buy our lunch again? I've tried to talk him into flying up here & take me along, but he doesn't do it!
Probably wouldn't have the room anyway! Dream on, Uncle Doug!

Matt Elsen · Post by **Matt Elsen** » 7 Jan 2007 4:17 pm

Fret 7 no pedals would be a "B"

Should be: Fret 8 no pedals for a "C"

ME

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 7 Jan 2007 4:49 pm

Matt,
Thanks. I think I fixed it in my post.

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 7 Jan 2007 4:51 pm

Most of my practicing is scales, arpeggios and finger exercises. I practice very little actual music. I figure that the music will come in band rehearsals and on the bandstand, but the chops I have to develop on my own.

Doug Seymour · Post by **Doug Seymour** » 7 Jan 2007 5:02 pm

very good point, b0b!

Mark van Allen · Post by **Mark van Allen** » 7 Jan 2007 9:50 pm

Arpeggios have ended up being one of the cornerstones of my "style", such as it is. I'm frequently amazed how rarely I hear them used in other's playing. After all, they're pretty much laying right there...

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 8 Jan 2007 2:00 am

Bob Hoffnar's point about the range of the violin is well-taken, if you want to chase after this stuff there is a ton of study material available. There's a couple of people selling a CD on Ebay that has thousands of pages of violin music on it in Adobe/PDF format, including at least 10 or 12 different study methods that have scale and arpeggio instruction. Search "Sheet Music" for "violin" and they'll pop up.
Violin Music CD
You can also search Ebay's sheet music for "scales" and individual books will pop up - the problem with the CDs is you have to either print all those pages, or else play steel while staring at your computer, too wierd for me. A lot of violin players and teachers wrote their own exercises too, they're called "studies" or in French "Etudes." (and they use Italian words to say "go fast" or "go slow"....)

The gold standard for this stuff is J.S Bach's "Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin" and "Solo Cello Suites." He wrote these as combination technique and theory lessons for his students, and what makes them so useful is that they're very musical and hence pleasurable to play. If you trot off to Berklee or Julliard as a guitar major, first thing in the door they'll hand you these books and say "get busy", and a good steel guitarist should be able to play what's needed....

it all depends on what you want of course. All the top-notch violin and cello players end up recording parts or all of these as performance pieces, and a few classical guitarists (Fisk, Williams, Segovia) play some as well - Fisk's versions are terrifying. Earnest Bovine is the only steel guitarist I know of who can actually wend his way through an entire Bach partita, but I'm sworn to secrecy....

There are different books available, I like the basic Schirmer ones because they're cheap and you can write all over them, fret positions and such.

Bach's Violin S&Ps

Dan Haas · Post by **Dan Haas** » 8 Jan 2007 6:17 am

Good Post

My son started the violin about six months ago. During the Christmas holiday he was playing some classic Christmas tunes so I jumped in with the steel and was amazed at how well it fit.

Thanks for the good info!

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 8 Jan 2007 8:17 am

For the uninitiated, an arpeggio is just a chord played one string at a time as a phrase. But usually an arpeggio is more than three notes. So you have to play the chord over one octave, then move to the next octave, either on higher strings or going up the neck. This is really a piece of cake on steel, if you know chords.

An interesting variation on arpeggios that creates fantastic licks, is to play a 3 note arpeggio, drop back to the next to last note and play that inversion, drop back again and play the next inversion, and so on. Robert Randolph and Chuck Campbell are masters of this kind of lick on the pentatonic blues scale. Buddy Cage can turn this kind of staggered arpeggio into a breathtaking swoop up the neck.

These are the kinds of exercises I always hope to get around to but hardly ever do - like rotating your tires and getting your teeth cleaned.

Jeff Lampert · Post by **Jeff Lampert** » 8 Jan 2007 8:33 am

I'm curious as to why none of the pedal steel books or courses seem to contain arpeggio excercises

Which pedal steel books have exercises on minor, pentatonic, wholetone, and diminished scales? Which pedal steel books have exercises on voice-leading? Which pedal steel books have exercises on chord inversions, phrasing, tension and resolution, intervals? The point is that pedal steel players do all these things, but the education process is not formalized the way it is in piano and guitar. Most instructional materials are song and/or lick based. But those songs and licks often cover a myriad of known musical constructs. The player has to generalize it for themselves and by doing so, they can use them in other contexts.
[/quote]

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 8 Jan 2007 8:43 am

I use arpeggios, or other numeric patterns over a scale or chord, as a quick warmup and to keep chops up.

As a quick warmup I'll just play three note forward rolls TIM (and/or backward rolls MIT). Starting on the bottom string, just play in groups of three, starting the next group on the next higher string. 10 9 8 then 9 8 7 then 8 7 6, etc. going up. When you get to the top, repeat the same pattern backwards, from high strings to low strings. You'll be surprised how your speed and accuracy will improve and how much of a workout your hands will get in a short period of time.

To keep chops up, I use the following variations:
- only chord tones (on E9 skip over 9, 7, 2, 1) -- same idea

- play crossover TFT (thumb finger -- index or middle -- and thumb) crossing over

- play four note patterns as 8th or 16th notes

As others have mentioned you will find places in your improvisation to use these skills and notes. They are boring played in their entirety but can be used to create some interesting licks -- both uptempo and otherwise.

A lot of my work involves getting on and off stage fast -- playing a single set with little prep or warmup time. At the end of soundcheck or just before the set starts I will silently run one of those little arpeggio patterns up and down the neck. Two or three minutes can work wonders to warm you up.

The Hanon piano warmup / pattern book is great for getting ideas for numeric patterns. I love working with piano players who use those patterns as warmups. Pianists often play them in octaves, using both hands and STILL play them faster than I can.

I'll play along quietly if I can pull it off without embarrasing myself.

Jonathan Shacklock · Post by **Jonathan Shacklock** » 8 Jan 2007 5:33 pm

Thank you for your answers and food for thought.

Bob and Jeff you are both right about most PSG material being lick based. I do think arpeggio exercises would fit right in with that approach though, arpeggios being licks in themselves. I find it surprising that the books include scales and chord grips but not formulaic (in a good way) finger exercises that might familiarise you with so many aspects of playing at the same time: blocking, dexterity, chord grips, melodic improvisation, roots and intervals, stamina, repeat note positions, bar intonation, picking accuracy, matching pedal/lever to string etc.

I've got a lot out of Joe Wright's stuff but his drills deliberately avoid musical relationships between notes. That's the bit I'm missing. You can learn chords without really understanding them and you gan gain chops without being able to pick out a decent tune (definitely not a dig at Joe).

As some of you have pointed out, arpeggios lend themselves to adapting into great licks. I'm looking for things that will break me out of the up and down the scale rut into stronger melodies and I also reckon some lateral arpeggio exercises would help me to link up positions across the neck more creatively.

Thanks for the ideas guys, this has given some great places to start. If anyone else has some good moves, do post!

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 8 Jan 2007 8:36 pm

I find that players who make a point to practice a lot of scales and arpeggios tend to rely on that in their improv and don't develop a strong sense of melodic invention. Practice melody and melodic excercises in conjunction with the scales and arps.
One will give you the ability to express and come up with nice melodic phrases and the other will make you sound like a robot or a second year Berklee student. Got to have a good balance.

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 8 Jan 2007 11:22 pm

Here is a practice trick I got from a Berklee guy a while back:
Sing something and then play it. After you can get around a bit in a scale stop playing the steel and sing a 4 to 8 note long phrase. Look down at the steel and see where you would play it. Hear it in your head and sing it again. Then pick up the bar and play it exactly as you sang it. Don't cheat and start noodling around with all those steel licks ! That is for another part of your practice time. Make sure the simple, short phrase you play on the steel sounds musical and has a beautiful singing quality. Then move on to longer phrases. If you really want to mess your head up once you get solid on a phrase find at least 2 other places on the neck to play the exact same thing.
The next level of this excersize is to harmonize those phrases on the fly. I work on this stuff constantly. It will keep me busy forever !

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 9 Jan 2007 2:41 am

They are not missing. They are only missing from the material that some may be using. And also keep in mind the purpose of the material in question. More often than not it is about the SONG and not the education before the song. The intent of most programs is to get players moving..fast...now....today, not tomorrow.

Arpeggios and triads ( GRIPS) in my opinion are the rudements of E9th Pedal Steel Guitar. A Player attempting to understand the E9th Pedal Steel without this fundemental education/skill is not going to progress into anything more than a novice who has been playing for years . They may be a very polished Novice but the ability to progress and stretch will be severely hindered.

Sorry for being so blunt.

It's kind of like drummers who do not study paradiddles, they are never going to play like Steve Gadd or Eddie Bayer. They will probably never play "IN TIME" either.

Although I don't claim to be anything more than I am, I do have a handfull of students and this is exactly what we work on in lesson 1. Arpeggios and triads up, across and down the fretboard. No songs. Most are so overwhelmed with "MAGIC" that they just discovered they don't really care about songs right then anyway.

A recent student was playing thru some of these exercises when all of a suden he related it to a TABBED song he had been working on, he discovered the reason why the TAB was working. He gets it now. It clicked. He is now on the other side of the hump.

Improv is the ability to move the music in your head to your Instrument. If the player does not know where those "TONES" are on the fretboard there is not going to be much improv. The musician who is in the IMPROV mode is multi-tasking for sure, one of the tasks is auto pilot recall of the tones/phrases and where they are on the fretboard.

t

Frank Parish · Post by **Frank Parish** » 9 Jan 2007 4:34 am

For me learning scales would be what I would work on most. Maybe somebody here knows what books have the scales written in tab form. Reading music notes is no doubt helpful but I don't want to take the next two years learning to read music until I can get back to learning the scales. I'm talking about C6 playing. It's the old jazz standards that I listen to on radio and it's what I buy for CD's.

P Gleespen · Post by **P Gleespen** » 9 Jan 2007 6:46 am

Bill Hatcher wrote: One will give you the ability to express and come up with nice melodic phrases and the other will make you sound like a robot or a second year Berklee student. Got to have a good balance.

So, if you've got a good balance, does that sound like a THIRD year Berklee student?

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 10 Jan 2007 11:41 am

It depends on how good the guy was BEFORE he got to Berklee.

Dr. Hugh Jeffreys · Post by **Dr. Hugh Jeffreys** » 13 Jan 2007 4:26 pm

I consider arpeggios a more advanced practice technique. They are very easy to execute when playing with all five fingers as I do. The book/CD package that I placed on the market (Amazon.com or our Forum) recently is focused on sight reading -fast using saccadic eyemovement exercises. It is more in the Intermediate to Advanced category. If there is enough interest in arpeggio studies---let me hear and I'll write something on that order. HJ www.steelguitarbyhughjeffreys.com

C. Christofferson · Post by **C. Christofferson** » 14 Jan 2007 12:24 am

More of a scale exercise formula than an arpeggio, but what the heck. As far as i know its called 'sequencing'. Very tricky at first on the steel but a good door opener. Take the major scale, say G on the 3rd fret, starting on 8th string then up the scale (but keeping the bar always on the 3rd fret),,,A four note sequence would be thus:
.............do ra me fa
..................ra me fa so
......................me fa so la
............................fa so la si
................................so la si do
A three note sequence (played as triplets):
..............do ra me
...................ra me fa
.......................me fa so
.............................fa so la
.................................so la si..........& so on.
e.g. both ascending and decending. Whenever possible, pedal gliss between tones (the tricky but cool sounding part). If you skipped every other scale degree i guess that would make it an arpeggio;
.......................do....me....so
...........................ra......fa.....la
...............................me....so.....si
....................................fa.....la.....do

No doubt pretty basic, probly covered in some of the books mentioned. Can be a good mechanical workout.

[url=http://www.geocities.com/steelexp001/redbaronC.html]custom steel / recordings[/url]

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 14 Jan 2007 2:27 am

What C. Christofferson says is exactly what I start guitar students out on for scale exercies - scale fragments. It's a lot more interesting than just going up and down all seven notes. I approach them numerically, with "1" being, umm, "1."

1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-5, 3-4-5-6, 4-5-6-7, 5-6-7-8
5-6-7-8, 4-5-6-7, 3-4-5-6, 2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-4
4-3-2-1, 5-4-3-2, 6-5-4-3, 7-6-5-4, 8-7-6-5
8-7-6-5, 7-6-5-4, 6-5-4-3, 5-4-3-2, 4-3-2-1

1-2-3, 2-3-4, 3-4-5, 4-5-6, 5-6-7, 6-7-8 etc.

Then, as he mentions, start skipping notes to run the chord sequences.
1-3-5, 2-4-6, 3-5-7, 4-6-8 etc.
9-7-5-3, 8-6-4-2, 7-5-3-1 and on and on, up going up, up going down, down going up, down going down. A lot of these are very musical and fun to play, so it's not like "work" at all. Eventually you can start making up eight note, even twelve and sixteen note sequences, and run them up and down through the scales - astonish your friends! Entertain at parties!

C. Christofferson · Post by **C. Christofferson** » 14 Jan 2007 12:18 pm

Let me mention one other type of arpeggio that i used on 6 string alot (where it had a physically repeating pattern which made it easy to plat through 3 or 4 octaves quickly,, and sounds really good too). Choose 4 notes from within the scale, but never including the 1. So, for example: 2, 3, 5, b7. Or an augmented sound: 2, 3, b6, b7.
One place on the steel that the first arpeggio example can be played is :
In key of A... all on the 7th fret with 1/2 A pedal, plus B pedal, strings 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 1, 3. (strings 9 & 2 will be the root, when str. 2 is lowered 1/2 step).

[url=http://www.geocities.com/steelexp001/redbaronD.html]custom steel / recordings[/url]