I really like arpeggios exercises. They really help develop stretch and
strength in the left hand and give the pinky an major workout. But, the most
important benefit of all (IMO) is building "mental map" of interconnected
scales for each chord all the way up the neck. Arpeggios are like the
framework for everything.
Here's the D exercise I use. Each pattern borrows from the previous pattern
and moves up the neck. Once you learn them all it becomes easy to "see" the
entire structure of "D". Once I learn a group I set the metronome at 100 and
string phrases from each of them together into a lazy improvised solo working
my way up and down the neck so I really get used to jumping from one arpeggio
to the other. This seems to really drill the patterns into my brain and
fingers and instead of being boring "exercises" arpeggios become tools for
learning to improvise.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |----------2----|--------------|----------2-5-2-|---------------| |------0-5---5-0|--------------|--------5-------|5--------------| |--0-4----------|4-0-----------|----4-7---------|--7-4----------| |2--------------|----2---------|2-7-------------|------7-2------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |----------5-10-5|-------------|------------10-14|10-------------| |------5-9-------|9-5----------|--------9-12-----|--12-9---------| |--4-7-----------|----7-4------|----7-12---------|------12-7-----| |7---------------|--------7----|7-11-------------|----------11-7-|
