Arpeggios for rest-strokers

Mambo71

Is there a resource that shows arpeggio shapes laid out on the fretboard that would marry up well with the rest-stroke technique? I mean there is an abundance of method books that show common arps in positions but I understand from Michael's book that visualizing the fretboard more horizontally works with the strengths of Gypsy picking. My research thus far is directing me to Stephane Wrembel's book, or Yaakov Hoter's video lesson or possibly even Frank Gambale's work. Is there a definitive guide to playing arps in this style? Any thoughts?

T1mothy

practice them horizontally and diagonally in all ways so that you may choose freely.

Mambo71

Hi T1mothy. Thanks for the reply. I guess from the point of view of improving one's knowledge of the fretboard geography, then it would be best to be equipped to play arps in all directions, but in practice, surely certain fingerings lend themselves to the rest-stroke technique more than others. I recall George Benson saying that his vertical playing was very pedestrian, for example, so he worked everything out diagonally to compliment his technique.

T1mothy

I believe when you actually know the position of all notes needed its only up to your prefference and momental need how to navigate through the fretboard. From my point of view when learning new arpeggio. Say for A7 in all of me (non diatonic. Didnt know that one for key of C before) I learn all the ways and then confidently choose the most practical. If I only googled DIAGONAL arpeggios and learned theese few movements Id feel like restricting myself, learning only a sweet spot of the whole map but if certain unexpected situation brough me into different place on the fretboard Id surely end up lost. Hope this helps
Tim

Jazzaferri

I agree....learning the diatonic 4 note chords in a scale is vital knowledge. Start with the tonic on the six string. There are 3 general paths diagonally towards the nut, across and diagonally towards the bridge. Start with one and master it. Then learn another path from the same note and so on.

Yes " playing" positional arpeggios is pedestrian, but it is also vital practice in learning how to play.

Mambo71

So the message that I'm getting is that you do not allow the characteristics of your picking hand dictate to your fretting hand.

Jazzaferri

Not sure what you mean. If you wish to do a sweep picked arp, then by all means do one, just have more than that one in your arsenal. There are certain basic suggestions for rest stroke picking (see Gypsy Picking book or others). Use them to determine how you want to play your Arps...or look up the picking patters in books or videos.

What's important is to hear the music in your head and have the technique to execute what you hear. Your train your hands to operate as a team eventually functioning unconciously.

pickitjohn

You could check out Tim Robinson's Free Lessons w/PDF files...

http://www.timrobinsonguitar.com/lessons/basicarpeggios/basic.html

Mambo71

Many thanks for the responses. I shall check out Tim's site for sure.
Perhaps I could have been clearer if I'd said; Are the standard 'caged' position arpeggios that you see in most jazz method books the same patterns that Gypsy players use? The reason for my doubt is that I see them performing extended arpeggio runs that traverse the standard 5 fret positions.

Appel

I wonder if there is a way to force a monospace font into one of these messages ... I have an idea about this but it is tricky to communicate without a bit of a diagram ... let's try ...


:..................5.......7.......9..........12
N---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
N---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
N---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
N---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
N---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
N---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|


Look at that, it works ... ok, I'll be back in a minute!

Appel

Everyone is familiar with this way of playing a diminished seventh arpeggio:


:..................5.......7.......9..........12
N---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-Db|---|---|Fbb|---|---|
N---|---|---|---|---|---|---|--G|---|---|-Bb|---|---|---|
N---|---|---|---|---|-Db|---|---|Fbb|---|---|---|---|---|
N---|---|---|---|--G|---|---|-Bb|---|---|---|---|---|---|
N---|---|---|-Db|---|---|Fbb|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
N---|---|--G|---|---|-Bb|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|


One of the most wonderful things that good Gypsy Jazz guitar players have going on is a beautiful sense of gesture. In any other style - except certain quite extreme and extremely heavy rock styles, which is a bit of virtuosic overlap that is very interesting to a lot of us, I am almost certain - none of us would ever get away with playing that line in that way. People would laugh. But in a Gypsy Jazz context, it not only works, it's usually very beautiful. It almost never sounds like a stupid lick, or a "hey look at me I'm really fast" moment - I suppose it does in some player's hands but, say, Fapy can toss off that arpeggio and it never sounds like flash; it sounds like the guitaristic equivalent of whatever a great painter might be doing when, while standing at a canvas with palette in hand, he suddenly decides he needs the energy and emotion of a fast, broad stroke in a primary colour and WHOOSH! there's a bold new line across the image.

Panache? Duende?

Part of the power of that particular gesture is the physicality of it. We have to practice the shift, train the first finger to jump up a position with each ascending string, or the fourth or third (or, if you are crazy and Django-obsessed enough, the second) finger to shift down a position when descending - but the pick strokes just fall into place: ascending, it's (6) down, up, (5) down, up, (4) down up, (3) down, up, (2) down, up, (1) down, up ... and then probably slide up three more frets and play a diminished chord of some kind, then resolve.

So ... yes, it's important to practice all the arpeggios in all the inversions and all the positions and be ready to weave our lines in whatever directions we choose ... and one of these days I'm going to work through the rest of Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns and actually practice all the exercises in Van Eps's Harmonic Mechanisms (all three volumes) and maybe even finish the Mickey Baker books. Got all your arps in all the inversions down in all the keys? My goodness, Mr. Coltrane, I had no idea you played the guitar as well.

To be more direct - interestingly, I read not long ago that the great George V.E. himself never bothered to actually work comprehensively through all the exercises he wrote out, and actually laughed when asked the question - he just worked on what he felt he needed at the time, for his playing; and that that tricky devil Mickey had just barely started on the guitar himself, had been playing a few months at most when he wrote the first volume of his venerable text - ok, maybe that's not particularly relevant but I sure thought it was interesting. Anyway, point being: I think it is completely disingenuous to suggest that an acoustic player does NOT look for ways to play everything he or she plays that fits well with the requisite techniques for good articulation.

Sweeps ... do sweeps work well on an acoustic guitar? Ya ... sometimes ... in soft passages, particularly ... but when I watched an instructional video that Romane did eons ago and he insisted, with the diminished arpeggio I diagrammed above, that it be played always that way - and ONLY THAT WAY! - after I got over my shock at the assertion and opened my mind to what he was getting at ... a whole lot of other things started to make sense. Of course we know other ways to play that arpeggio ... but performing? That one is the bomb.

Why does it sound so great? Because - ascending and descending - it is easy to articulate!