Speed Picking - Arpeggio

Bill Hankey · From: Pittsfield, MA, USA

How much do the two musical styles differ? Both require notes to be played in rapid succession. Are those rapid-fire notes maintained exclusively by a specialized quickness of hands? It seems to be the last frontier in becoming a recognized steel guitarist. The late Jerry Byrd might have argued with such an assumption, while applying his touch and tone. Still, any departures from accepted concepts, are usually met with difficulties.

Eddie Cunningham · From: Massachusetts, USA

Hi Bill !! It seems to me that todays young pickers are driven to play faster than the guy they learned from !! Faster is better ( especially in rock and heavy metal )!! The old "Byrd " style and old Hawaiian music soothed the brain and todays music seems to agitate and aggravate what brains are left in the younger kids heads !! IMHO !! I like my old brain to be soothed and relaxed , not aggravated !! Eddie "C"

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Arpeggio is the technique of playing the notes of a chord, one at a time.

Speed picking is the art of playing fast.

Arpeggios can be fast or slow. Speed picking is always fast.
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Eddie Cunningham · From: Massachusetts, USA

Hi B0b !! I do understand what an arpeggio is - like strumming across a harp or strumming a chord on the steel , I guess what I meant was that I don't really enjoy speed picking mostly cause I can't play fast !!! and I do enjoy the smoother , more relaxing sounds of slower Hawaiian music where you can lay back and relax ( like with a cold beer !! ) !! IMHO !!Eddie "C"

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

Arpa (Italiano) = Harp (English)

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Arpeggios are a string of notes played so that by the time you get to the last ones, the first ones no longer exist.

Speed picking is making sure that none of them exist very long.

There's a school of thought that says that speed picking is only proper when done slowly. Savoring each note..

Then there's viewing "speed" as relative to slower things, such as changing tides, seasons, or stages of human development..

Wink

EJL

Bill Hankey · From: Pittsfield, MA, USA

b0b,

I just returned from visiting with a pianist who plays and sings. She studied music, and has a collection of musical literature in book form. When she demonstrated the arpeggio sequences of single notes of various chord structures, I was reminded that the words fast, quick, and rapid best describes arpeggio. To play the notes slowly, at first, until the practiced notes become memorized, is not much different than speed picking. I feel that there is a need for more definitive
literature, on the subject of arpeggio.

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

I know EB. I was being facetious.

If, say Randall Currie heard a lot of the "speed picking" I do, he'd think it was pretty slow..

Arpeggiation is as inclusive as you want it to be.

I for one, don't think that notes ever "cease to exist".

It's a "b0b" thing he came up with one time..

Wink

EJL

Archie Nicol R.I.P. · From: Ayrshire, Scotland

`Arpeggiation`. An Anglification of an Italian word?

OK.

Arch.

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Any references in my posts to actual words are purely co-incidentle..

Wink

EJL

Doug Beaumier · From: Northampton, MA

Arpeggios may be played at any tempo, and they have little to do with speed picking IMHO. They are heard in most kinds of music... everything from Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata to the Beatles Because. One of the best known arpeggio riffs is the guitar intro to the rock classic Stairway to Heaven. There are hundreds of other examples, including a lot of slow 50’s tunes like Unchained Melody, and 80’s songs like Every Breath You Take. The guitar sweeping styles of the 80’s were also arpeggiated.

If arpeggios are played rapidly they might remind us of speed picking, but arpeggios are Chords played in individual notes, and Speedpicking involves Scales, not chords. When you speed pick on your steel guitar you are thinking and playing Scales. When you play arpeggios you thinking and playing Chord shapes. That's my take on it anyway Wink

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Bill Hankey · From: Pittsfield, MA, USA

Doug B.,

Some harps and lyres dating from 2800 BC have been found in Ur near Mesopotamia, (a part of modern Iraq). The Claireach, a more elongated shape, was introduced to Ireland before The Christian Era from Spain. With the coming of St. Patrick to Ireland, in 432 AD, it became very popular. In Scandinavia 5000 years ago, harps were viewed as instruments to difficult for a woman to play. Today, thousands of women and children play the instrument. The harps are tuned to the diatonic scale, whereas the Nashville tuning on the pedal steel is tuned chromatically by adding the missing sharps. A study of Georgie Fleming (1931-2002) accordianist, pianist, composer, and arranger from Winnipeg, Manitoba suggests arpeggios to be more of a speed related form of music. His sparkling solos are full of bitonal arpeggios and ridiculously fast runs. I'm familiar with finger rolls on the steel guitar, that for me, are the fastest sequences of notes that are discernible to the hearing senses. The similarities of the harp arpeggios and finger rolls on the steel guitar, arouse a need to further the study of arpeggio derivation.

Carroll Hale · From: EastTexas, USA

I sorta like the slower stuff....may be it is age, but I like to hear and enjoy each every beautiful note of the music.....not against fast pickin...just kind of partial to the slowly played tunes.. Very Happy

arpeggio...fast....whatever....it is all good and I admire and respect those that can play fast... Laughing

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

imagine a Jazz Guitar player who could not "Speed" pick per say...

I am not certain of the overall view here..

Adding a style of "execution" to a players vocabulary doesn't change the Musician it changes what they bring to the table and how they can execute within a given song. Now that being said, everyone wants to drive fast too, but that doesn't mean they should...

taste, play the song...

stretch...get out of the box...

play slow, play fast ,play half fast... Smile

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

Carroll Hale · From: EastTexas, USA

Carroll Hale · From: EastTexas, USA

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

An arpeggio is individually playing
the notes of a chord one after another.

Simple as that.

In the chord style of it the notes can be left ringing.
In the single note style notes are stopped before the next on starts.

If the chord is a triad you have a three note arpeggio
like C E G C
If it is four voices it has 4 notes. Like C E G B C

BUT if it is like the classic rock bass line
it can be
up and down through some combination of the chords root based scale degrees.

So for C major
C E G A Bb A G E C adding the VI and bVII of the C scale

Of course for larger jazz voicings the scale arpeggio
can climb above the octave.

Slow or fast makes no difference,
it will either be
one note after another and stopping each before the next,
or note note after another but ringing overlapped till decayed or muted.
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Bill Hankey · From: Pittsfield, MA, USA

David D. has stressed that arpeggio is playing the notes of a chord one after the other. The convenience of omitting Webster's definitions, whenever his defined lexicon conflicts with one's beliefs, should be looked upon as possessing a strong inclination to wrangle and rewrite the dictionary. Consider the paramount significance of Webster. Isn't it aimless to target established definitions, that contain accurate information? It's plain and simple, as according to Webster: ARPEGGIO- 1. The playing of the notes of a chord in QUICK succession instead of simultaneously. 2. A chord so played. Finis!! End of statement! I have found that over the years many interpretations erode, mainly for reasons that some folks choose to ignore the finer points of a designated intent to preserve factual information. Wouldn't musical scales qualify as something played in chord forms? In other words, arpeggios achieved by the rapidly played notes in sequences,
minus the blocking techniques commonly played in the mastery of steel guitar, are one and the same.
Dexterity, musculature involvement, concentration, and stamina, regulate performance levels in the speed picking routine. Jimmy Dean once called Chet Atkins a frustrated octopus. Not out of disrespect, but rather to emphasize his finger style technique on the Spanish guitar. Speed picking on the steel guitar, has no definition available in text. Its complexities would require a full page to cover the intricacies involved in defining every detail of how best to become a speed picker.

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

4 results for: arpeggio

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source
ar·peg·gi·o

1.the sounding of the notes of a chord in rapid succession instead of simultaneously.

2.a chord thus sounded. Also called broken chord.

[Origin: 1735–45; < It: lit., a harping, n. deriv.
of arpeggi(are) to play on the harp (< Gmc; cf. OE hearpi(g)an to harp)]

Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source

1. The sounding of the tones of a chord in rapid succession rather than simultaneously.
2. A chord played or sung in this manner.

[Italian, from arpeggiare, to play the harp, from arpa, harp, of Germanic origin; see harp.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source
arpeggio
1742, from It., from arpeggiare "to play upon the harp," from arpa "harp."

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
WordNet - Cite This Source
arpeggio

noun
a chord whose notes are played in rapid succession rather than simultaneously

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

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Bill if you reread my post it says essentially just that.
The main concept in all cases is
playing the notes in succession.
Sometimes discretely and sometimes sustained.

At Berklee they also allow for more extended chord voicings
than the basic 4 notes of standard simple chords arpeggio's.

If the notes are not in the chord it is not an arpeggio,
but a variation on a scale relating to that chord.

There are also many references to the Harp instrument,
and though they do play block chords on the harp,
it is commonly known for broken chord arpeggio style playing.

Beautiful example is the intro and break for Mr. Sandman
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Bill Hankey · From: Pittsfield, MA, USA

Dave,

I've always respected your broad range of views, and the accumulated knowledge that you possess. I feel safe in believing that you make very few errors in musically related statements. Thanks for the support and written data on current matters of interest.

David Doggett · Posted 3 Apr 2007 7:28 am

Okay, as long as we are getting semantical - Bill H. is misleadingly focusing on the term "rapid" in the definition of arpeggios in an attempt to artificially force the term into being a pseudosynonym for "speed picking." The dictionary definitions are using the phrase "rapid succession" to differentiate this from simultaneous block playing of chords. The key word in the phrase is "succession," not "rapid." An arpeggio simply takes the tempo and note value of the written music. It could be 16th notes at vivace, which could be called speed picking, or quarter notes at largo, hardly speed picking. I'm with Doug B. on this. The arpeggios in Moonlight Sonata, O Holy Night, and Ave Maria are certainly not speed picking. There is some vague lower speed threshold beyond which the note sequence will no longer be recognized as an arpeggio or a chord seqeunce. But that would be way, way below the threshold of what would be perceived as speed picking.

An arpeggio can be played with stopped or sustained notes. That has nothing to do with the definition, but is specified in the music by phrase marks, sustain pedal marks in some piano music, or pizzacato dots.

There is something between an arpeggio and a block chord. This is done too rapidly to give the notes a specific time value and writing them out in an arpeggio. I forget the Italian name for this, but it is written as a wavey line running up the side of a block chord. It's a keyboard thing. You play the chord in its time value slot, but you strike it one finger at a time going up from the bottom, holding all the fingers down so the notes run together as a single chord. Stringed instruments plucked with the fingers also sometimes use these ripple type chords.

Harps very commonly pluck out arpeggios, and play them fast or slow, depending on the music. In order to play arpeggios on a diatonically tuned harp, the player has to select out the chord notes and skip the scale notes. Harpists also play glissandos, which involves rapidly hitting all the scale strings and sustaining them through each other. That would be similar to speed picking.

But speed picking would not seem to be limited to either scale patterns or chord patterns. It is simply a rapidly picked pattern of any kind - might be an arpeggio, or might be a scale, or might be some kind of staggered pattern, or even a melody. Rolls are repeated patterns in speed picking. They refer to the fingers plucking repeatedly in the same finger pattern. But these might go up a chord, or a scale, or some staggerd pattern - especially if the strings are out of order, as they are on 5-string banjo and pedal steel.

Finally, steel guitars are not generally diatonic tuned instruments, and are even less chromatically tuned. They are mostly open chord tuned instruments. Adding a 6th or b7th to the open chord, as on a D10, does not make that a chromatic tuning - it's still a chord based tuning. Likewise, adding the 2nd and 7th notes of the scale, as on strings 1,2, and 7 of E9, does not make it a chromatic tuning, in spite of those strings being erroneously named the "chromatic strings." A chromatic tuning would have all 12 notes within an octave, both the white notes and black notes of a keyboard. Keyboards and modern horns are chromatic instuments. Some primitive flutes, penny whistles, reed instruments, and horns without valves or slides (bugles, didgeridoos) are not chromatic. Pedal harps can get the whole chromatic scale. But the tuning of the strings is still diatonic. Likewise, pedal steels can get a few accidentals with pedals and levers. But even a 9&9 pedal steel is probably not fully chromatic within any single octave. Maybe those rare heel-and-toe pedals, or the double row of pedals, used by a few players were fully chromatic. Pipe organ pedals are generally chromatic, but some small organs have non-chromatic pedals.

Okay, now that I've gotten all that off my chest, is that sufficiently semantic for you, Bill H.? Wink

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

I concur with D. Dog.

Speed Picking as steel players refer to it,
is generally thought to be fast picking AND blocking
of continuous patterns of notes.

Not necessarily the same notes,
nor derived from the same chords,
nor necessarily from arpeggios of those chords.

That said, it also could be fast picking of open chords,
where the notes ring on, similar to guitarists
and harp players doing the same.

Even a fast strum on guitar is actually a
series of notes played and sustained,
since the pick can only touch
one at a time however fast.

Only those using multiple fingers w. or w. o.
picks can get actual block chords.

But for steelers, that is considered dropping
a part of the technique of speed picking.
The blocking.
As exemlpified by the pick blocking of
Joe Wright, and Paul Franklin, among others.

Often speed picking can be on arpeggios,
and is an excellent source for speed picked note choices.
But arpeggios are far from the only choices for speed picked lines.

An example of GREAT speed played music
based on arpeggios, being re-adapted
through a harder technique is
Glenn Gould's Bach Goldberg Variations
done on a normal piano.

The originals were written and played
on harpsichord with its inherent very fast decay,
meaning you could hold your fingers down
and the decay is normal.

While Gould had to develop super fast attack AND release
on the regular piano to defeat it's inherent extra sustain.

Apparently he went to such lengths as to immerse
his hands in VERY hot water just before playing
each recording in the series, just to have them
properly warmed for the extreme exertion...
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Real happiness has no strings attached.
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