Featured Writer - :Ponco Satrio

Ponco Satrio

Thanks to bro Ponch for submitting this wonderful article for Bruguitar blog. I will be doing an interview with him so check out this blog often. - Pemaingitar

His article :-

Jazz 7th Chord Arpeggios

Hi there, in this humble small article I would like to share about Jazz 7th chord Arpeggios. An arpeggio is a broken chord in which the individual tones are played one after the other. This is a very good way to achieve specific chordal sounds over improvised melodic lines. Arpeggios are usually seen as little motives of three notes basic triad : (root) 1 , (third) 3, (fifth) 5, but sometimes people add some extras notes like 7 , 9, 11 and 13.

So here we go, let us start playing the 7th Arpeggio patterns :

1. The Major 7th arpeggio. Mostly in two-string patterns and also a more diagonal approach, best for playing sweeping technique.

Please click on picture for bigger view

2.The Minor 7th arpeggio. Try this simple configurations of minor 7th arpeggios in which I have found very simple and effective.

3.The Dominant 7th arpeggio. My favourite patterns to play over dominant 7th chords, I think these configurations very memorable.

Note : Practise those patterns always in slow tempo first ! yes I know it's little bit tricky.. so there's no need to rush.

You can play the notes in order from low to high or vice versa, but it there are some other configurations of sequence patterns that you can use. So try some of these configurations first:

1 3 5 7 , 1 3 7 5 , 1 5 7 3 , 1 5 3 7

3 1 5 7, 3 1 7 5 , 3 7 1 5 , 3 7 5 1

5 1 3 7, 5 1 7 3 , 5 7 1 3 , 5 7 3 1

7 3 1 5, 7 3 5 1, 7 1 5 3 , 7 1 3 5

Note : Feel free to come up with your own configurations patterns ideas :)

I hope you can get some ideas from this cool 7th arpeggios stuff , till then.. enjoy it !

-Ponco Satrio