Maj7 Arpeggios

[Tea Rochlitz]

Maj7arpeggios are a must-know concept for any jazz guitarist, but they can be difficult to get under your fingers when working these shapes around the entire fretboard. Finding a system to organize your maj7 arpeggios can make playing and soloing with maj7 arpeggios easy, as you will be able to think less about the shapes of each arpeggio and their location on the neck, and more about how you want to make musical and interesting lines.

To help see this relationship, here is a G major scale next to the Gmaj7 arpeggio on the fretboard, where you can see the notes of the arpeggio are directly taken from the related scale fingering.

As well, the notes of the Gmaj7 chord are also in the Gmaj7 arpeggio. In this case, you are playing each note once in the chord shape, and not in note order, whereas in the arpeggio, you are playing each note twice to fill both octaves, and they are played in note order as well.

With these comparisons on paper, try playing major scales and chords from different root notes, followed by the related arpeggio shape to see how these items are related on the fretboard before moving on to the next step in the lesson.

If you learn maj7 arpeggios in this fashion, you will be able to cover the whole fretboard with chord tones when soloing, as well as always have a chord shape and arpeggio shape under your fingers for any maj7 change you are playing over, which can be very helpful in any jazz guitar situation.

When practicing these chords and arpeggios, make sure to play the chord first followed by the arpeggio. This will make a mental connection between the two shapes and make it easier to switch between chords and arpeggios when you take these shapes to a musical situation.

Now that you have explored the four maj7 chord-arpeggio shapes in your studies, here is a fun exercise that you can use to work these shapes in all 12 keys while moving to the closest shape each time.

The goal of this exercise is to begin to see the next chord/arpeggio as close to the current chord you are on. So, if you are on Cmaj7 in root position, and want to move to Fmaj7 next, you would play the 3rd position of Fmaj7, which starts on the note C.

By working the chords and arpeggios in each of these three groups, the one in the above example and two groups listed after that, you will be able to practice all 12 keys of these arpeggios around the fretboard, while learning how to move between the various arpeggio positions at the same time.

Once you have worked out this phrase, try putting on a backing track for these chords, or other groups of Maj7 chords, and creating your own improvised phrases using the arpeggio shapes learned in this lesson.

This lesson absolutely great. Thank you very much. Are you going to put minor 7 and dominant 7 arpeggioos like this, cause exactly what we need for visualizing and put them together, scales arpeggios and positions, for begginers like me. This is the best lesson I ve ever seen till today among many jazz tutorial sites and blogs. Thank you again

Hey Dave, I agree that keys are important, which is why these arpeggios are presented as related to the major scale. For lydian, that would be another lesson as it would include mention and study of the #4 note as you said. So the goal of this lesson is to introduce maj7 arpeggios, show how they are built, and relate them to inversions of Maj7 chords. What you mentioned is very important, but just the subject for a different lesson, which we have plans to do in future. Cheers.

This is why Rector always broke a tune down into keys, and the five shapes. All of the arpeggios and chord voicngs are are contained within them. This overview serves me well today. I admit that I know all the arps too, but I hear them, and my fingers find them within the shapes as I hear them as part of a phrase. The overview contains all this stuff. It beats floundering in a sea of bits and pieces of information. I think this is very very important.

You don't need to include the root if you're accompanying other musicians (e.g. a bass player will have the root covered). Simply look for the 3, 5 and 7 and you can play three-string maj7 shapes in several places on the neck for any given chord.

So once you've learned the arpeggio patterns, it's useful to practice playing them into and out of related scales. The 2 most common scales that work with major 7th chords and arpeggios are Ionian or the major scale and Lydian. As you can see, both scales include the major 7th intervals.

While major 7th arpeggios are typically played over major/maj7 chords with the same root, a lot of musicians don't realise that the arpeggio also works in relative positions to chords. Let me explain.

The reason this works is because the same tonic major 7th arpeggio touches on natural colour tones of each of chord in the key. So we're essentially extending the chord being played by using this arpeggio.

You do realize that it is more than just some "trick"? You have to spend many years in music to truly understand what is going on. Practice makes perfect. You do realize there are all kinds of 7th chords? Not just your basics by 7b5, 7#11's, 9th chords(which are 7add9's), 7b9, etc?

Rather than focusing on some abstract idea to "detect" some type of chord your time is better spent learning music. Learning music automatically teaches you everything you want. There is no short cut. Learn songs, learn to sight read, learn to improvise, etc... You'll never find some magic trick. The more you listen the more you'll figure out stuff. I used to think like you and I wasted many years, once I actually spent time learning music(listening and such) then everything made sense and I could hear everything I wanted.

But because you think it doesn't work this way: Every musical group of notes has a "color". 7th chords each have their own color. Dom7 chords have a certain quality to them. You won't under understand this unless you learn triads, maj 7ths, minor chords, diminished, tensions etc. In fact, they all work together. You build up the picture progressively not by sequentially. That is, you probably can tell major and minor apart, that is easy. But add a 4th note you get many more combinations. Min Add 9th, Min add11, Maj add#11, Maj add6, Sus2/4, etc. All these are just different colors/sounds. What makes them each unique is the unique combination of notes... but you learn to tell them apart by contrasting them with other colors AND by knowing the names of what you are hearing. Learn to spell chords and learn to analyze chords in music so you can at least know what you are suppose to hear, and then listen(= actively listen, which really means listening to a lot of different music. Don't try to hear some magical thing inside chords that doesn't exist).

A dom 7th chord has a tension in it that sets it apart from all the other non dominant chords. Listen to blues, you'll hear dominants all over the place. Have you listened to much blues? BB King? SRV? Albert King? Blues is the sound of the "dominant". Of course almost every piece of music uses dominants. Learn structural form of music. E.g., the blues is obvious and simple. The V7 chord comes at the 9th bar almost ALWAYS. So you can hear what it sounds like there. Learn to count so you know where things are at then you will know.

You are simply not going to be able to figure it out through some abstract process of practicing to hear some type of chord out of context and meaning... it's simply not how things work. Even if you do figure it out do you just want to be a one trick pony? Don't try to rush things, just learn and listen and over time things will make sense.

Now, I'm definitely not saying don't try to do what you are doing, just spend about 5 minutes a year on it, spend the rest of the time being more productive. Once I stopped wasting my time on trying to figure out shortcuts(which is what these "ear training" stuff is) and started working on actual music, after about 2 years I could ear almost all the chords. The biggest thing is to actually learn songs. How many songs do you know that uses dominant 7th chords? If you don't know any songs then what is the point? If you know some songs then figure out the where the dominant 7th chords are and that is what they sound like. Every other chord will be the same. The IV, well, it's right there, do you see it? You don't! That is why you don't know it is a IV chord. Analyze music! All music is just chords, so it's pretty easy.

It really is very difficult on one hand but very simple on the other. You have to learn to see the simplicity of it. It mainly has to do with exposure both intellectually and aurally. Sure, you probably can learn to hear these chords by practicing in some way but it will take you 10 times longer and you will get 100 times less out of it and that is not how you want to approach it.

What is the V7b9/V in the key of D# major? Can you figure out the notes relatively quickly? What are the intervals of a F#13#11? What chord does a the notes A C Eb F# B want to resolve to? These are intellectual things that you learn by studying, it has nearly zero to do with sound. It is the mathematics of music. Listening to music is where you can apply these things. If you know a piece uses a V7b9/V because you've analyzed it then you can listen to it and say "Oh, that is how it sounds". You do the "Oh" part a few (hundred) thousand times then everything makes sense.... but it happens gradually and you'll never be completely finished.

One week is not enough time, unless you have amazingly sharp ears. So the first thing to realize is you must be prepared to spend much, much more time on the ear training. In all seriousness think in terms of a full year. You can probably make a lot of progress during that time, but one year give you some sense of the scope of the undertaking.

So far, the best ear training thing for me has been playing and singing aloud to the rule of the octave. (It's the scale harmonization starting on page 5 here ) That harmonization uses a few seventh chords (ii7 - minor seventh - and V7 - dominant seventh - in various inversions in major key.) but the main point is the rule will give a foundation in hearing conventional diatonic harmony. Seventh chords other than ii7 and V7 will be heard in contrast to rule of the octave.

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