Handbook

Introduction

As already written, from an harmonic point of view, an arpeggio is simply the extension of a chord. For instance, the following arpeggios

From the harmonic point of view are equal to

Here you will find a sequence of proper passages through degrees in the various keyes (I will restrict myself to the most commons) so to help who will use arpeggios to make it correctly.

Infact it is not rare, using the most popular chord positions, to make coarse errors.

For example, moving from C to D is usually performed in this way

that has a couple of errors, one is a parallel eigth (C-D at Bass and C-D at Alto) and one of parallel fifth (C-D at Bass and G-A at Tenor)

Please note that some passages are always omitted. 

Sometimes because they inevitably lead to harmonic errors, e.g. from V degree to I degree first complement (in C it means from G with B as bass to C with E as bass, that is an error because B as leading tone should always resolve to C)

Sometimes because they cannot be accepted from an harmonic point of view, i.e. a V degree should never be followed by a IV degree

Some other times because there are some position rarely used, for example VII degree should always be used in its first inversion.

Please note that in minor mode I signaled both the VII degree using the leading tone (i.e. in A minor the G#) and using the seventh not altered (so loosing the leading tone function, it means that it has not to resove on the tonic). To point it I used the name utilised in Functional harmony (see the Diether de la Motte harmony handbook), that is dP (briefly it means major parallel of the minor dominant - in A minor, as an example, dominant in E major, minor dominant is E minor, major parallel is the relative major of E minor, that is G major).

Chord sequences

C major  A minor   G major    E minor   F major  D minor   D major     B minor