This challenging piece from Heitor Villa Lobos features a series of ascending and descending arpeggios, each repeated twice. Though written for classical guitar and meant to be played finger style, we can of course play this piece pick style.

We will digest the piece several bars at a time. In the end, you will likely find that your arpeggio skills are far beyond where they were when you began. It will just take some patience!

Villa Lobos's piece Etude 2 may as well be titled Arpeggio Madness, since that is what it really is. This piece is a guaranteed means to take your arpeggio technique to the next level. The piece features a variety of arpeggios that demand a variety of techniques to play: in some cases you will want to use sweep picking and in other cases you will want to use legato or alternate picking. Yet in other cases you will need to execute rapid position shifts. The end result is that you will have a newfound mastery of arpeggios.

Above is the tab for this guitar lesson. Being a guitarist/composer, Villa Lobos often wrote his peices with specific fingerings in mind. These fingerings assume that one is to play the piece classical style (i.e. fingerstyle). Having looked at his original fingerings, I found that while some of his fingerings feel natural to me, others felt quite awkward. So the tab above is simply my preference, but by no means lock yourself into my fingerings. Experiment and find what works for you!

At the end of the 4th measure, the piece returns to the opening arpeggio (in the recording you will hear it fade out at that point) after which it sequences through another variety of arpeggios. Perhaps I will cover the next few measures in a future lesson. But don't wait for me - the tab and sheet music for this piece are readily available on the internet. So if you are feeling confident after the first four measures, then continue with the piece!

As usual, I recommend listening to other musicians' renditions of this piece. It might give you ideas you wouldn't have otherwise thought of. Rhapsody is a great way to explore music. Click here to get a free 14-day trial of Rhapsody

Later,

Brian

In part 1 of this guitar lesson, we looked at the opening 4 measures of Etude 2. Those measures featured some arpeggios that involved rapid position shifts up and down the neck as well as more localized arpeggios. In these next 4 measures, it is all about rapid position shifting.

Above is the tab for this guitar lesson. Measure 5 starts with the same A Major arpeggio that starts the piece off. From there it goes to an A Minor arpeggio. The next 2 measures involve a similar switch from a Major to Minor arpeggio, this time going from E Major to E Minor.

As you can see, these measures feature a great deal of position shifting. Indeed it is this shifting that poses the greatest challenge of the piece.

As usual, I recommend listening to other musicians' renditions of this piece. It might give you ideas you wouldn't have otherwise thought of. Rhapsody is a great way to explore music. Click here to get a free 14-day trial of Rhapsody

Later,

Brian