My first real experience dealing with major 7 arpeggios for guitar was in a college jazz improvisation class.
While the jazz guitar teacher I had worked with through high school was great, he just didn’t think about playing solos that way…
Now don’t get me wrong, he could absolutely play arpeggios. He just seemed to think of nearly everything in terms of jazz guitar chords, so that’s what he taught.
Sometimes it’s hard to teach the things that come naturally for you – the things you “just do.”
But in college I was thrust into a different world. I had to be able to play my major 7 arpeggios in every key, quickly.
Just to keep up, I had to dry and figure out how to put my arpeggios on different strings so I didn’t have to jump around the neck so much.
Before too long, I recognized some common finger patterns. And once I put these to work, I could easily play major 7 arpeggios on guitar.
The Anatomy of a Major 7th Arpeggio for Guitar
A major 7 arpeggio is a “broken” or “melted” major 7 chord. You can think of it as a major 7 chord broken into its individual pieces – the notes of the chord.
It is made up of the root (1), major third (3), perfect fifth (5), and major 7th (7) intervals.
You can also think of it as being made of the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th notes of the major scale.
Since we’re playing one note at a time, I find the scale to be a more helpful visual guide than a chord shape. We’re kind of thinking scale and chord at the same time here.
Movable Major 7th Arpeggio Shapes
When you’re working on major 7 arpeggios for guitar, it’s important to use movable shapes.
Arpeggio shapes are considered movable when they don’t have any open strings – so if you move your arpeggio to a new fret, you’re playing in a new key.
This makes it easy to play any major 7 arpeggio you need, just by moving a couple of finger patterns around the neck.
We’ll be using 5 movable finger patterns, each starting on a different string. Follow the diagrams and examples below carefully to learn your major 7 arpeggios for guitar.
6th String Shape
5th String Shape
4th String Shape
3rd String Shape
2nd String Shape
Practice these movable arpeggio shapes all over the guitar fretboard to get them ingrained into your fingers and muscle memory.
Practical Applications in Jazz Guitar
Solos
Arpeggios are an important part of playing solos in jazz. They allow you to outline the chord changes as you play, creating melodies out of chord tones.
This can give the listener the sense that they can hear the chords in the background, even when you’re playing by yourself.
The major 7th arpeggio is perfect to use over any major 7th chord (Gmaj7, Cmaj7, Fmaj7, etc).
As you get more advanced, it can also be used as a substitution for different types of chords.
Technique Development
Arpeggios can be kind of tough to put into action right away. It’s more challenging to play arpeggios for each chord than it is to create melodies using the major scale, for example.
There’s a little more to keep up with, a few more moving pieces to put arpeggios to work in your solos.
One of the best things to focus on when you’re starting to practice arpeggios for guitar is your technique.
Arpeggios are a great way to work on your picking hand, and get your fingers to move a little differently on the fretboard. This can help break you out of some of your current improvising habits.
As your technique gets better, you’ll be able to start applying these shapes to chord changes more easily.
Learning the Guitar Fretboard
Another thing arpeggios are great for in general is learning the fretboard. It’s a constant thing you need to be working on if you want to be a jazz guitar player.
Us guitar players have to put in a little more effort to learn the notes on our instruments than most other musicians. That’s just the way it goes.
Try playing around the cycle of 4ths for each arpeggio shape – that will make you play each arpeggio pattern in all 12 keys and expose you to the different notes on the guitar neck.
You can also try picking a limited area of the fretboard, like the first 6 frets and trying to play every arpeggio within that space.
It’s a lot trickier, but it really helps your fretboard knowledge while making you review your arpeggio shapes.
Conclusion
Major 7th arpeggios for guitar are an essential piece of your jazz guitar toolkit.
They let you play melodies of major 7th chords while outlining the essential harmony of the chord.
The shapes we looked at today are also an important building block in learning your other arpeggio shapes. So it’s a good idea to learn these 5 patterns well.
Practicing your arpeggio patterns is also a great way to improve your technique in both hands, and learn the guitar fretboard better, so pick a shape from this lesson and get to work!
Do you practice arpeggios in your daily routine? Let me know in the comments.
More Arpeggios
For more jazz guitar arpeggios, check out dominant 7, minor 7, and minor 7b5 arpeggio shapes.