Hopefully by now you checked out the Triad Arpeggio lesson. In this lesson, we are extending the idea of the triad to form 7th arpeggios. We use the same basic idea behind the triad, and simply add the 7th note from each mode. In this case, we find that there are 4 unique 7th chords (remember - arpeggios are just chords with notes played separately): Major 7, Minor 7, Dominant 7, Minor 7b5. The Minor 7b5 is also known as the Half Diminished 7. That's all the theory in this lesson!

The 7th chords can not be played strictly with sweep picking like the triads can (unless you have inhuman fingers). You have to throw in some hammer-ons and pull-offs or a couple alternate pick strokes. But I think that is an advantage rather than a disadvantage. I get bored playing arpeggios using sweep picking, so playing 7th arpeggios is always a refreshing change. They also have a much richer sound than the triads. The triads sound too stale to me. The 7th arpeggios on the other hand sound much more alive because of the added active tone. And when played with a combination of short sweeps and legato, they sound nice and smooth.

The first 3 exercises (A Major 7, C# Minor 7, B Dominant 7) all fall within the key of E Major. I had meant for exercise 4 (the Half Diminished 7) to also be in E Major, but I spaced and played an E Half Diminiahed 7 (the correct Half Diminished 7 in the key of E would be Eb). So just keep that in mind in case you try to harmonize all those arpeggios together. You would need to move the Half Diminished 7 down a half step in order for all the arpeggios in this lesson to be in the same key.

In the intro to this lesson, I talked about how the 7th arpeggios sound much more interesting. You will soon see what I mean, after you play this A Major 7th arpeggio.

Here we see that the Major 7th arpeggio looks somewhat interesting also.

There are a variety of ways to play this arpeggio. In the Tab, I show some hammer-ons and pull-offs as well as some short sweeps. I think the legato really helps make this smooth sounding.

In this exercise, you will play an C# Minor 7th arpeggio. This arpeggio closely resembles the C# Minor Pentatonic scale. So using this arpeggio along with Pentatonic type of lines can definately make you stand out from the crowd.

Here we see the Pentatonic-like shape of the C# Minor 7th arpeggio.

See exercise 1 from this lesson for any instructions on playing this arpeggio.

This is by far my favorite sounding arpeggio. It has such a unique, exotic sound. I draw upong the Dominant 7th arpeggio quite a bit when it comes to playing lead and melodies. I find that it constantly inspires musical ideas. You would use the B Dom7 arpeggio in this exercise in the key of E major (i.e. the B is the 5th tone of the E Major Scale, which goes with the Mixolydian mode, which in turn goes with Dom7 chords...).

Here we see a B Dominant 7th arpeggio. The shape is somewhat awkward, but don't pass this one up. It sounds too good!

See exercise 1 from this lesson for any instructions on playing this arpeggio. And then play this exercvise about 100 times until you are in awe of how good the Domiant 7th arpeggio sounds!

Here is a weird sounding arpeggio for you. Would you expect anything less from a Dminished arpeggio (well, Half-Diminished...)? I think not. You would want to use this one in the key of F Major.

Here is the E Half Diminished 7th arpeggio. There is something very important to notice here: The 4 notes in this arpeggio are part of the blues scale. So when you are playing pentatonic and blues lines, throw this arpeggio into the mix to see what kind of effect it has. Might turn some heads that way (hopefully not away!).

See exercise 1 from this lesson for any instructions on playing this arpeggio. If you know your blues scale, then this exercise should feel really comfortable.

I believe one of the keys to playing lead guitar with conviction is having a large enough vocabularly to continually create cool sounding riffs. By tapping into a big enough toolbox, you will always sound refreshing as opposed to pulling off similar riffs every time you pick up the guitar.

Arpeggios are a great means to boost your lead vocab. They offer so many possibilities for spicing up your playing, especially when you consider that for every chord type there is a corresponding arpeggio. Consider 7th arpegios (see my 7th Arpeggio guitar lesson). In particular consider a G Maj7 arpeggio.

Here is one of several Maj7 arpeggio shapes. This is an A Maj7 and so just slide it down by a whole step and you have the G Maj7 shape. This lesson is based on the above shape, but you should feel free to experiment with other shapes and use what works for you!

Above is the tab for one possible riff that you could come up with using a G Maj7 arpeggio. This riff uses a series of trills to ascend through the arpeggio, as opposed to just playing the arpeggio straight through.

When I play these sorts of riffs, I generally like to follow it up with some sort of improvisational riff to bring it to a logical ending. In my recording, you'll hear me descend with a scalar run based on the G Major scale. Feel free to improvise in whatever way you see fit!

Also, I just recorded a fast version. It simply takes too much time to record various takes and create the mp3 files, etc. But it is not the audio clip that is important about this guitar lesson - it is the concept.

Later,

Brian