5 Extended Jazz Guitar Arpeggio Exercises
As you take lessons and continue your journey of learning how to play jazz guitar, you’re told about the importance of knowing your arpeggios inside and out, as well as being able to run them through changes to create improvised lines and solos.
But what do you do when you can run all of the arpeggios up and down for any tune you know, as well as use them in an improvised context? The answer just might be to start checking out extended jazz guitar arpeggios, those that move beyond the first octave, 1-3-5-7, fingerings that many of us already know.
What Is An Extended Jazz Guitar Arpeggio? Extended jazz guitar arpeggios are those that go beyond the typical 1-3-5-7 shapes that we normally study in the the practice room. For example, a normal Cmaj7 arpeggio would be: C-E-G-B or 1-3-5-7 The extended jazz guitar arpeggio would take you beyond the 7th, toinclude the 9th, 11th (in this case the #11) and 13th like so: C-E-G-B-D-F#-A or 1-3-5-7-9-#11-13 Being able to play extended jazz guitar arpeggios is a great way to outline chords while at the same time stepping beyond the first octave of the chord and out into the upper extensions, 9-11-13. You can learn more about these ideas in my in-depth article “Extended Jazz Guitar Arpeggios.”
So how do we do this? Well, you could just find the notes that make up the 9th, 11th and 13th for any chord you’re working, such as maj7, 7, m7 or mMaj7, but that might take too much time or produce awkward fingerings. Instead, an easy way to extend arpeggios is to take any four-note shapeyou already know, and then pair it with a simple, three-note triad that you already know, and voila, instant extended arpeggio. You can see how this works in the following example: Cmaj7 up to the 13th is Cmaj7+D triad or C-E-G-B + D-F#-A So you haven’t learned anything new, just took two things you already knew and combined them to form a new concept. Here is a basic chart for figuring out the extended jazz guitar arpeggios forcommon chords: Maj7 = maj7+M triad a tone higher (produces a Lydian sound) 7 = 7th+M triad a tone higher (produces a 7#11 sound) m7 = m7+m triad a tone higher m7b5 = m7b5+M triad a semi-tone higher mMaj7 = mMaj7+m triad a tone higher
Once you’ve checked out extending jazz guitar arpeggios for these common voicings you can come up with your own for any chord or arpeggio that you want to explore such as Maj7(#5), 7(b13), 7(b9) and many more.
How to Practice Extended Jazz Guitar Arpeggios Pick a tune Play the ascending extended arpeggios for each chord Play the descending extended jazz guitar arpeggios for each chord Play the ascending extended arpeggio for the first chord, then descending for the second and continue
Reverse the previous idea so you start on a descending extended arpeggio Improvise on the tune using only extended jazz guitar arpeggios
Being able to solo with chord tones, either arpeggios or extended arpeggios, is an important tool in any jazz guitarists bag of tricks. If you are already familiar with the normal 1-3-5-7 shapes and how to use them, try adding a simple triad on top of these fingerings. It will allow you to keep the sound of the chord in your melodic ideas whileexpanding your tonal options at the same time.
