There are some basic principles that I think most guitar students should know to develop speed and flexibility when practicing right hand arpeggio patterns. These principles are applicable to other areas of technical development, so once you become familiar with them, you can try to apply them to your scales and to difficult passages in your repertoire.

Assuming you have a decent base, a clear stroke, and you’ve logged sufficient hours of basic arpeggio practice, the next step is to explore them to uncover weaknesses and discover your own limitations and strengths.

For all of the following ideas, spend time on each one as if were the only one to master, stick with them for longer than you may have the patience for because careful and consistent repetition really helps. I’ll illustrate the principles using pima across strings 4, 3, 2, and 1. This is a default position for your right hand that should used ALL the time in arpeggio practice and through ridiculous amounts of practice, it should start to feel like home. Once pima is mastered try the other combinations of four fingers across four strings: piam, pmia, pmai, paim, pami.

Accents

Simply play through each trying to accent the note indicated. You can exaggerate the follow-through of the stroke to achieve this or turn the exercise on its head by playing all unaccented notes in a more relaxed fashion.

Downbeat Rotation

Though related to accents, I swear that when I start this arpeggio on m it feels out of balance. I guess I’ll go work on that right now.

Active Preparation

I like to think that if my finger is on the string it will pluck that there is no way José that I will miss that note. So, guess what I try to do all the time? I try to simultaneously pluck and prepare the next pluck so that I’m theoretically always prepared and waiting on the string. Practice landing on the x but do not pluck.

Meter

I love doing this. Take a 4-note arpeggio and play it through as a continuous triplet until the first plucked note (p) cycles back into the downbeat.

or try this one:

Bursts

Set the metronome to a tempo that is near your limit or beyond. Think of it like a mini-sprint. Exert hyper-control when you go slow so that the bursts remain as accurate as possible.

Rhythm

Related to bursts but meant more to develop rhythmic flexibility, here are the basic six rhythms I use (there are MANY more) all the time when warming up.

Good luck!