November 2007 \ Premier Clinic \ Practice Up \ Diminished Arpeggio Patterns

Diminished Arpeggio Patterns

Denis Taaffe

Interesting lead lines made easy
Premier Guitar November 2007
Welcome to another edition of Practice Up. As I continue to develop my guitar style, I just completed and released my 105th full length album entitled, Modern Rock Guitar Vol. 105 – Finding Your Way 2. You can hear audio samples of each track at my website. While recording the album, I made extensive use of diminished arpeggios. I found that when I broke the diminished arpeggio into small patterns, I was able to use them more easily with other arpeggios. Keep in mind that the diminished arpeggio can be played every three frets. As a result, an G#/Ab diminished arpeggio could also be called an F diminished arpeggio, B diminished arpeggio or D diminished arpeggio. Let’s take a look.

Example 1

Let’s begin with a standard Ab diminished arpeggio ascending and an A minor arpeggio descending:

Example 2

Keep in mind the diminished arpeggio can be moved every three frets. So, our Ab diminished arpeggio in the first example moved up three frets gives us a B diminished arpeggio. We could play a B diminished arpeggio ascending and an A minor arpeggio descending as follows:

Example 3

We can also extend the B diminished arpeggio to play this B diminished ascending and A minor arpeggio descending example:

Example 4

Here is yet another way to play our B diminished arpeggio ascending and our A minor descending from the second example. Use your pinky to transition from the diminished arpeggio to the A minor arpeggio on the high E string:

By taking these simple arpeggio shapes and using them to ascend to an A minor arpeggio, we can create some interesting lead lines. When you begin to move the diminished arpeggio every three frets, it yields a number of additional possibilities. Remember to try and incorporate these arpeggio shapes into your playing – we’ll see you next time.

Denis Taaffe has been playing guitar since age seven and has developed a unique solo electric guitar style which uses regular guitar and guitar loops done on the fly and all his material is improvised on the spot. Denis performs, records and teaches guitar regularly. He has released 80 independent CD's, nine of which have been considered for Grammy Awards. He also has endorsements with Kradl picks, Seymour Duncan Pickups, Ernieball/Musicman Strings, Parker Guitars & Boomerang Pedalboards. You can visit his website at www.dtguitar.com for more info on him and mp3 audio samples.


     

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Comments

 (6 comments) display by
UsernameComment
glerk
on 12/06/2012 		I'm not familiar with any A Minor arpeggio shapes that include a C# in the second octave. Might want to clean that up, as you've posted a thing that's half A Major and half A Minor.
mike
on 12/27/2009 		and sorry g is the fifth not the fourth
mike
on 12/27/2009 		to anwser martin, the diminished scale can be used in every major, 145, minor 236 or diminished 7, but when its played in a 1 4 5 it creates a tension, as its supposed to, so don't accent notes, but in a minor, it sounds more melodic, so accented notes are better used here, same as the diminished. For example, in the key of C a simple progression would be c, am, g, for c and g the dimished scale will sound closed, because they are the first and fourth, but in Am, c's relative minor, it will sound melodic, try it, i hope it helps :)
Martin
on 12/14/2009 		There's lots of examples on how to play diminished arpeggios on the web but almost no explanation on when to play them. I know you can play them over a diminished chord, or a major V chord in a minor progression but how do you use them in blues?
Marty "Mealwo rm"
on 08/09/2009 		You rock
JoeString
on 10/24/2007 		Awsome, thanks!



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