Chromatic Approaches on Guitar
I don’t want to go too deep into the topic of “chromatics” here, but rather concentrate on “chromatic approaches”.
Chromatic notes with scales
A “normal” C major scale looks like this in notes:
So the chromatic notes are between the diatonic notes.
The notes with the red arrows are the newly added chromatic notes. So we simply fill in the space between C and D.
Whereby it must be said that there are also natural half-tone steps in the C major scale, such as between B and C and between E and F.
These half-tone steps belong to every scale, but are not necessarily considered chromatic approaches. But you could also see these half-tone steps as chromatic approaches.
So all you have to do is fill in the empty frets on the guitar:
The orange notes are the additionally inserted chromatic notes between the diatonic notes.
Chromatic notes in arpeggios
The same principle can now also be applied to the arpeggios.
Since the steps between the notes in arpeggios are larger than in the scales, you think a little differently here.
Instead of “filling” as with the scales, you could simply “add” here. So the arpeggio e.g. B. start differently.
A well-known technique for using chromatic approaches in arpeggios is to approach the arpeggio notes (1, 3, 5 or 7) with a certain approach.
In the example above, we first play a chromatic approach before each root. In this example, half a step higher and then resolve with the root.
This technique is then also used for thirds, fifths and sevenths.
The exact same principle can also be done with “Double Chromatic from Above”. So here, instead of a chromatic note from above, two chromatic notes are played from above.
Again, this can be applied to the other arpeggio notes and of course other variants such as “Double Chromatic from Below” or “Single Chromatic from Below / Above” etc.
