Jazz guitar arpeggios · Concept
Five arpeggios, three shapes each, twelve keys. That is the whole foundation, and there is no shortcut past it.
A triad has three notes and cannot answer the question the harmony is asking. C-E-G belongs equally to Cmaj7, C6, C7 and C9 — play it over any of them and you have said nothing about which one you are on. Add the seventh and the ambiguity is gone: B makes it a maj7, B♭ makes it a dominant. The seventh is where the information is, which is the same reason a shell voicing keeps the seventh and throws away the fifth.
So the first five things to learn are the five seventh arpeggios, and the order to learn them in is the order they appear in a major key: maj7 on I and IV, m7 on ii, iii and vi, dominant 7 on V, and m7b5 on vii. Add dim7 and you have the minor key as well.
| Arpeggio | Built on | Notes | Against the chord | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cmaj7 | 1 | C E G B | 1 3 5 7 | Start here |
| Em7 | 3 | E G B D | 3 5 7 9 | Alternative |
| E7sus4 | 3 | E A B D | 3 13 7 9 | Advanced |
| Am7 | 13 | A C E G | 13 1 3 5 | Advanced |
An arpeggio is the set of notes that are safe. Tension and Resolution is about the ones that are not, and about when a line has earned the right to play them.
Start here
Project 02 · Jazz guitar
Project 04 · Jazz guitar
Project 03 · Harmony
Learn each arpeggio as three shapes — root on the 6th string, root on the 5th, root on the 4th — rather than as a pattern in one position. The reason is not tidiness. It is that at tempo you do not find an arpeggio by counting frets from the nut; you find it by putting a finger on the root, and the root is on whichever string is nearest. Here is the m7 arpeggio in all three.
Solid dots are chord tones; the green dot is the root. Play each shape ascending and descending, then play it starting from a note that is not the root — the third, then the seventh — because a line that always begins on the root is a line that always sounds like an exercise.
Written out below, because the shapes are transposable and the note names are not — and it is the note names that tell you whether you are lost.
| Root | Notes | Formula |
|---|---|---|
| C | C Eb G Bb | 1 b3 5 b7 |
| D♭ | Db E Ab B | 1 b3 5 b7 |
| D | D F A C | 1 b3 5 b7 |
| E♭ | Eb Gb Bb Db | 1 b3 5 b7 |
| E | E G B D | 1 b3 5 b7 |
| F | F Ab C Eb | 1 b3 5 b7 |
| F♯ | F# A C# E | 1 b3 5 b7 |
| G | G Bb D F | 1 b3 5 b7 |
| A♭ | Ab B Eb Gb | 1 b3 5 b7 |
| A | A C E G | 1 b3 5 b7 |
| B♭ | Bb Db F Ab | 1 b3 5 b7 |
| B | B D F# A | 1 b3 5 b7 |