How to Play Arpeggios on Guitar

A couple of days ago on my Facebook page I asked what lesson readers would like to
see an article on.

While everyone had great suggestions, reader Daniel P suggested a lesson on arpeggios.
Upon realizing that I didn’t have a lesson on this important topic, I decided to write this
article as a guide on how to play arpeggios on guitar.

Besides having good comping and chordal chops, we must also practice single line
sololing and one of my favorite ways to outline changes is by using arpeggios.

Arpeggios are some of the most important patterns you can learn on the guitar because
you can define a chord with only 4 notes.

Modes and scales certainly have their purpose, but an arpeggio has 3 less notes so
they’re much easier to grab when harmony is quickly moving by.

To play over a major ii-V-I you need to be comfortable playing over three different
chord types; major, minor and dominant 7th’s, but first let’s look at how each arpeggio
changes over the same chord type.

Major 7th Arpeggio

The first arpeggio that we will be looking at is the Major 7th arpeggio which has a a
sweet and open sound. The notes found within the arpeggio are all diatonic to the major
scale. You can use major 7th arpeggios to improvise over any type of major or major 7th
chords such as major 9th, major 6, and major 6/9 amongst others. The diagram below
shows a two octave major 7th arpeggio in the key of C.

Major 7th  Formula: R, 3, 5th, 7

C Maj7 Arpeggio: C, E, G, B

 
 

Dominant 7th Arpeggio

There is only one note that changes from a major 7th arpeggio to form a dominant 7th
arpeggio, the 7th. The major 7th has a natural 7th whereas the dominant 7th arpeggio has a
flat 7th which, as a full arpeggio produces a bluesy type of sound because dominant 7th
chords are an important part of blues music.

Dominant 7th Formula: R, 3, 5th, b7

C7 Arpeggio: C, E, G, Bb

Minor 7th Arpeggio

The last arpeggio that we are going to look at for now is the minor 7th arpeggio which is
like a dominant 7th arpeggio, but with a flat 3rd.  Minor 7th arpeggios can be used to
improvise over any type of minor chords, such as minor 7ths, minor 9ths, and minor
11ths.
 

Minor 7th Formula: R, b3, 5, b7

C-7 Arpeggio: C, Eb, G, Bb

Practicing Arpeggios

Just like when practicing scales, the note names to each arpeggio must be said when
you’re practicing them on the guitar to ensure you that you become aware of what’s
happening harmonically underneath your fingers.

Before moving on, it is important to explore the arpeggios in a musical content. Record
a 1 chord vamp for each chord type (major 7th, dominant 7th and minor 7th) and
improvise only using one arpeggio at a time. For example, record a C major chord vamp
or use a backing track, and only use a C major 7th arpeggio.

Try improvising with just one octave of the arpeggio to begin with to get used to the
sound and fingering. Repeat this process for all 3 chords.

Now that we can play over each chord individually we need to look at combining them.
Record a new backing track with 8 bars of Cmajor7 and then 8 bars of C-7, and solo
over them just using the arpeggios explored in this lesson.

When you can switch between these two arpeggios , try recording a new track that has
only 4 bars of C major 7 and then 4 bars of Minor 7, then 2 bars of each chord (like
Green Dolphin Street), and ultimately one bar of each chord.

Spelling out the different chord tones in each chord means that you are now ‘playing the
changes’ which is an essential ingredient of learning jazz guitar. Congratulations!

 
 

Applying Arpeggios over a ii-V-I

Once you can comfortably solo over each of the three chord types individually, we can
now start to look at using them over a progression.

One progression that we are going to look at applying arpeggios over is the II V I which
forms the back bone of many standards. A II-V-I progression in the key of C would be
D-7 for a bar, then G7 and finally C major 7 for a bar.

 
 

This means that we have 3 separate chord types to solo over, so first thing’s first; let’s
check out the arpeggios for each of these 3 chords.

Minor 7th Formula: R, b3, 5, 7b7

D-7 Arpeggio: D, F, A, C

Dominant 7th Formula: R, 3, 5th, b7

G7 Arpeggio: G, B, D, F

 
Major 7th  Formula: R, 3, 5th, 7

C Maj7 Arpeggio: C, E, G, B

Now that we have them all together in one area of the neck, record the chords or use a
backing track to practice blowing the progression using the arpeggios. Remember to
start slow, so at first don’t have the backing faster than 100 bpm. If there’s one apreggio
that’s catching you out, practice it by itself first. You also try having 2 bars of each too.

Don’t worry about sounding ultra hip at first, at this point it is vital that you can change
when the chord changes. You will have probably noticed that each of these arpeggios all
contain notes from the C major scale, so why not just think of that? While there’s
nothing wrong with thinking of the major scale over each chord, in jazz we tend to
define the sound of each chord by focusing on the chord tones. By doing doing we are
making each change rather than just playing in a key center.

 
 

3 To 7 Pattern

One reason why the ii-V progression works so well is because the 7th of the minor 7th
chord drops down a semi-tone or fret to become the 3rd of the dominant chord. This is
sometimes called the note of resolution.

Jazz musicians frequently highlight this musician in their improvisation which makes it
an important part of the jazz language. The following diagram shows his this technique
can be applied to two octave ii-V arpeggios, but this pattern should ultimately be
practiced all over the neck and in different keys.

Voice Leading Exercise

When learning how to play arpeggios on guitar, one very effective exercise that I teach
to my students that helps them connect arpeggios together is to start at each degree of
the arpeggio, then play four quarter notes, and then start the arpeggio of the next chord
in the following bar with the arpeggio note the closest to the note you just finished on.
For example if you did this exercise over a ii-V-I in C major, the first chord would be
D-7. If you start by playing the root then move up the arpeggio in quarter notes you will
get to the note C on the 4th beat of bar which is the 7th of D-7.

The next chord in the bar as G7 and the closest arpeggio note of that chord to the ‘C’
from the D-7 is the B natural.

You can then play an ascending G7 arpeggio in quarter notes which will lead you to
finish on the G note which resolves well into the ‘E’ natural in the last which is the third
of C major 7. This exercise helps break you out of always starting from the root and
gets you cool voice leading techniques into your improvisation.

I hope this introduction to how to play arpeggios on guitar has been useful and given
you some material to practice on in the woodshed. Although, arpeggios are some of the
first things we learn when we start to learn jazz guitar, I find that I am practicing and
using them on a daily basis. Do you have a favorite way of practicing arpeggios? If so,
share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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