The 19th Century Arpeggio Bible

Arpeggios are an extremely valuable tool to practice on the guitar. Combine arpeggios with chords and you have basically created a piece of music!

You can now make your right hand technical regime fun and varied. (No longer only restricted to Giuliani's 120 Right Hand Exercises!)


These arpeggios give us some clues as to the compositional practices of the time:
For example, Mertz provides a melodic set of arpeggios that creates a two-voice texture. Each set of arpeggios progressively uses faster rhythms, suggesting that 19th century guitarists may have altered arpeggio textures in pieces.

For example, Kirkman gives a lengthy chord progression in which you apply the arpeggio patterns she has provided. This suggests that 19th century guitarists may have added arpeggios to block chord textures, perhaps to give variety and interest to the music.