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

good practice book. audio tracks included.

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 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.

Good material but not presented very well... others have commented on how it does not really teach you how to incorporate the arpeggio playing into your playing...just another reference book looking for the one to unite them all.

great book

I have always found Arpeggios to be a rather intimidating topic and could never quite apply them to my guitar playing effectively. Most books I have read just give lots of forms with no real applications. Stephen's book not only gives you the forms, but also shows you how to execute the forms with a host of techniques such as sweeping, tapping, string skipping, legato playing and more. The examples given are alone worth the price of the book. I have been searching for a book like this for quite some time and highly recommend it to any aspiring guitarist regardless of style.

Stephen is not only a gifted accomplished professional musician, but shares his intellectual wisdom on the guitar in this book. I highly recommend this to anyone wanting to further their guitar ability. I have had the pleasure of seeing him also perform live and let me tell you, not only will your jaw be left hanging on the ground, Steve Vai, nor Joe Satriani have anything on this guy.

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.