minor arpeggios

Italian for "harp like", the musical component termed arpeggio can become an important component on one's musical palette. Why? Well, for a number of reasons. Arpeggios are handy for the players of non chordal instruments when wanting to clearly outline the harmony in a more vertical approach to their lines. We oftentimes use arpeggios while creating lines to perhaps better outline fast moving chord progressions. Arpeggios provide another cool approach for the creative artist in creating their melodies, to perhaps artistically balance a more scalar, melodic type of line. And that rapidly articulated arpeggios can almost instantly create a tremendous amount of excitement in the music being performed. Hip to the theory of arpeggios? Here is a brief review.

Creating arpeggios in the minor color is a very simple process. We can use any of the resources of any of the minor scale configurations. This first example uses the pitches of the natural minor / Aeolian mode color. Using A as the fundamental, here is a chart reconfiguring the pitches of the A natural minor scale into it's arpeggiated form. Example 1.

Here is the sound of the above chart. Example 1a.

Look and sound familiar? The first three notes of the arpeggio create the minor triad, continuing past the fifth degree we enter into the zone of the color tones. So why are the minor arpeggios important to the creative artist? Well, for a number of reasons. For players of non chordal instruments, the arpeggio is a solid way to outline the harmony. Arpeggios provide a nice balance and contrast to perhaps the more common scale wise approach to creating melodies. That combining these two approaches artistically, scale wise motion with arpeggiated figures, expands the permutation and creative possibilities of the melodic resources dramatically. That rapidly articulated arpeggio figures can create an almost instantaneous excitement in the music and rocket the emotional intensity of the music being performed to dizzying heights. Just like that? Yep, just like that.

Lets recreate the above chart using the pitches of the harmonic minor color. Example 2.

The new leading tone G# adds quite a bit of tonal gravity to the color. The all important Five chord, or dominant, is re-colored to a major triad, a very common occurrence in many of the styles of American music even when the melody is created from the blues, pentatonic or other groups of pitches which do not contain this leading tone seventh. The tonic triad can diatonically be colored by the major seventh, creating the unique minor / major seventh color, which is for the most part a jazz styling. The arpeggio built on the seventh scale degree becomes fully diminished. It is only from within the harmonic minor group of pitches that this color diatonically emerges. Potentially a very important color for the emerging jazz artist. I also like to think that the harmonic minor has a bit of the "gypsy" sound in its color. Here is the sound of the diatonic arpeggios of the harmonic minor color over a dominant pedal tone. Example 2a.

Perhaps try explore the arpeggios from the other minor scale colors as time permits, one never knows what one will find. The following musical ideas try to capture some of the reasoning discussed above as to why minor arpeggios might be important to the creative artist. Outlining the harmony with arpeggiated figures, One / Four / Five / One in A minor. Example 3.

Combining the minor arpeggio with the minor scale to create a cool line. Example 4.

Rapidly articulated minor arpeggios to create excitement. Players have a name for this, the rapid articulation of arpeggios, it's called "sheets of sound." Example 5.

Cool huh? Takes lots of shedding to create lines of such velocity.

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"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." Mark Twain