Transform Essential Arpeggios into Musical, Flowing and Expressive Fingerstyle Guitar PiecesMost guitarists can play arpeggio shapes, but struggle to make them sound like music. The result is familiar patterns, predictable movement, and phrases that feel mechanical when they leave the practice room. If you want a practical way to connect fretboard knowledge with real fingerstyle performance, this book gives you the roadmap.
Creative Arpeggios for Fingerstyle Guitar shows you how to move beyond standard up and down patterns and use arpeggios as melodic tools, harmonic textures, and expressive building blocks for compelling fingerstyle music.
Written by award-winning fingerstyle guitarist, composer and educator Will McNicol, this structured, highly musical method takes a small number of essential shapes and expands them into a complete creative system.
Whether you want to enhance your arrangements, expand your vocabulary, or compose original music, Creative Arpeggios for Fingerstyle Guitar helps you sound musical and fluent across the fretboard.
In This Book You Will Learn one-, two- and three-octave major and minor arpeggios in essential keysMaster fifth and sixth string root shapes, plus open string ideas for creative movementConnect every position with smooth, economical transitionsCreate expressive lines with beautiful phrasing, adding embellishments and harmonicsExplore stunning textures with drones and colour tones, rather than repeating lifeless exercisesMusically apply arpeggios in common, real-life chord progressionsThroughout, your musical skills are developed with arpeggio vocabulary that turns every concept into real music. Short melodic etudes in each chapter, plus two full-length study pieces, show how everything fits together.
You’ll discover syncopated ideas, beautiful voicings, artificial harmonics, and thematic development alongside clear guidance that helps build your picking hand precision to voice each idea with melody, phrasing and dynamics.
By the end of Creative Arpeggios for Fingerstyle Guitar you will be able
Play all the important arpeggios and make them sound like music, not exercisesStop “playing shapes” and start creating musical ideas you can use immediatelyAdd harmonic depth to your fingerstyle arrangements using drones, extensions, harmonics and creative voicingsMove freely across the fretboard with confidence and controlCompose, arrange, and embellish your own pieces with clarity, motion, and colourIncludes Notation, TAB and AudioAll examples appear in Standard Notation and TAB, and the book includes a free audio download, so you can hear exactly how each phrase should sound and develop the timing, tone, and phrasing that bring your playing to life.
Order Creative Arpeggios for Fingerstyle Guitar today and start turning arpeggio shapes into musical fingerstyle pieces you can play and be proud of.