Maj7 Arpeggios Guitar

[Alexia Borson]

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.

Like the major and minor arpeggios, the 7th arpeggios can add a bit of color to your playing, particularly when playing over a I-IV-V blues progression. Introducing the 7th interval really pulls in that bluesy feel.

In the diagram below you see the intervals of the major scale with the major 7th chord intervals highlighted. Those intervals are shown on the guitar fretboard to help you visualize the distance between each interval. This is helpful when relating the major 7th to the dominant 7th and minor 7th arpeggios to follow.

As you go through and learn each arpeggio shape, pay close attention to the root note locations for each. The root note gives you an anchor point by which you can identify arpeggio patterns and move between

Dominant arpeggios are very close to the major 7th arpeggio with the only difference being the quality of the 7th interval. Major 7th arpeggios contain a major 7th while dominant 7th arpeggios contain a minor 7th:

The C form dominant 7th chord has the bass root on the 5th string. Also note that the 5th is omitted, leaving just the root, 3rd, and 7th. Since the chord quality is based upon the major 3rd and minor 7th intervals, omitting the 5th has little impact on the chord.

The dominant 7th arpeggio contains root notes on the 5th and 3rd strings. The A form arpeggio requires a couple of position shifts, which can make it a little tricky to play at first, particularly descending.

The E form dominant arpeggio also contains three root notes. They are found on the 1st, 4th, and 6th strings. This particular arpeggio pattern has a nice natural flow to it that makes it easy to play.

The C form minor 7th chord shape is a bit awkward to finger at first. You barre across the minor 3rd and root and use the 2, 3, 4 fingers to play the root, minor 7th, and 5th. Takes a bit of practice to be able to move in and out of this chord form efficiently.

In this lesson we took a look at major 7th, minor 7th, and dominant 7th arpeggios. Each arpeggio is made up of four notes, which include the root, 3rd, 5th, and 7th. The quality of the 3rd and 7th is what gives the arpeggio its quality.

If you're not able to play all over the fretboard, you're missing the foundation required to see the fretboard clearly. Build your foundation and put it all together with Guitar Essentials: Foundational Fretboard Navigation.

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