Great books for jazz guitar arpeggios?

[memyselfandus]

What is a great book for arpeggio reference?

I just want a reference book with all the arpeggio options.

[Goofsus4]

I have a small book by Mimi Fox - Arpeggio Studies Over Jazz Standards (search Amazon). It doesn't cover every arpeggio imaginable, but if you learned every one she shows you'd be a jazz god, so who cares?

But, in my opinion, the best way to learn arps is to just think them through yourself on the fretboard by identifying the intervals. You get them into your ear and fingers much faster and more permanently. I think it is very important to not just learn patterns, but to know what intervals you are playing. The patterns will present themselves to you eventually so you can go fast, but if you know the intervals you can use that knowledge for chord melody and comping and navigate the fretboard more easily.

[m78w]

Check out the "Orbits" series by Don Latarski, very extensive and very cheap!

MW

[bojan]

memyselfendus,
There is this book by Ralph Towner: Improvisation and Performance Techniques for Classical and Acoustic Guitar. I am aware that this is slightly off the mark but, nevertheless, I would recommend checking its contents. What you may find useful is the concept of arpeggio as, predominantly, a right hand technique. Actually, the entire "method" the book is proposing is based upon this concept.

[richb2]

Hi. I am working on her example of Summertime from this book. In it she plays the usual arps over the associated chords. But then she uses other arpeggios. For example over a Gmi7 she uses a Bbmaj7 arp "to create a Gm9 sound". Another example is using a Cmaj7 arp over an Am7 chord (creating an Am9) or using a Gbmaj7 arp over the Am7 (creating an Ebm9).

I don't know how she knows what arps to use over which chords. Are there any rules here? Is it at all related to comping?

[m78w]

Yeah there are a couple of rules that can help you out with this stuff.

If you have a maj7 chord, say Cmaj7, you can play a m7 arpeggio off of the 3rd, Em7, to make a Cmaj9 sound. Or you can play a m7 arpeggio off of the 6th, Am7, to make a Cmaj6 sound.

For a m7 chord, say Cm7, you can play a maj7 arpeggio off of the 3rd, Ebmaj7, to make it a Cm9 sound.

MW

[richb2]

Thanks. That's great. Anymore rules you can think of?

[m78w]

Sure, check these out.

For dominant chords, play a m7b5 arpeggio off of the 3rd to make it a 9th chord, so Bm7b5 over a G7 chord.

Also try a maj7#11 arpeggio starting on the 7th to give it a 13th sound, so Fmaj7#11 over G7.

You can also use a diminished 7th arpeggio off of the 3rd to give it a b9 sound, so Bdim7 over G7.

MW

[Goofsus4]

Hi. I am working on her example of Summertime from this book. In it she plays the usual arps over the associated chords. But then she uses other arpeggios. For example over a Gmi7 she uses a Bbmaj7 arp "to create a Gm9 sound". Another example is using a Cmaj7 arp over an Am7 chord (creating an Am9) or using a Gbmaj7 arp over the Am7 (creating an Ebm9).

I don't know how she knows what arps to use over which chords. Are there any rules here? Is it at all related to comping?

Man, this is exactly the same question I had when I looked at that exact Summertime solo example of hers. It sounds lovely, then you read her analysis and you start scratching your head. But then I put a lot of time into learning where all the intervals are and now it makes more sense to me. BUT, I don't think of it in the terms she uses.

When she plays the BbMaj7 arp over the Gm7 to get a Gm9 sound, all she is really doing is playing Gm7 and then adding the 9th. G minor is the relative minor of Bb major, so the notes are completely interchangeble. Same for the Cmaj7 over the Am7. A minor is the relative minor of C major, so again, it's all the same notes. So again, all she really is doing is just playing Am7 and adding the 9th to it.

I just view these things intervallically. If I am playing over a Gm7 chord and I want to hear the 9th, then I just play the 9th in my phrase. I play a lot of phrases that I could analyze as another scale or arp being played over a particular chord, but it now just seems much easier to view everything as just intervals in relation to the root of the chord I'm playing over.

When I started thinking intervallically about everything, I noticed that a lot of the substitution rules such as the I = iii = iv thing started making more sense to me. I'd be playing over a C maj 7, for instance, and just playing the chord tones, and adding in other "chromatic" intervals by ear then I'd notice, "hey, this is the same pattern as A minor pentatonic up here on the fifth fret" or "hey, this is just the same thing as E phrygian down here on the 12th fret."

Anyway, the point is that it really helped me break through the confusion once I began to analyze everything I played intervallically. Then you start seeing all the harmonic relationships better.

[richb2]

Intervalically.

Is that a word? I know what you mean. I have just started going through the Guitar Scale Mastery ear training so i can identify the 9th (although it seems to go up to the 7th and then repeats).

Once again I am on a tangent off from my selected path. But to memorize Mimi's solos without knowing why I am substituting won't allow me to move my skills forward.

Can you recommend a simple book to learn the Intervals?

[Goofsus4]

Can you recommend a simple book to learn the Intervals?

Sorry, I don't have any good recommendations for a book on intervals, although a good chord book usually identifies the chords intervals as well as its notes. Maybe others can help with a good recommendation.

However, there are tools on the internet such as the guitar codex linked below that will allow you to select a variety of chords and scales and it will show you where all the notes and intervals for that chord or scale lie along the entire fretboard.

Cyberfret.com: Guitar chord, scale, and arpeggio finder

This site may have a codex too, but I've not used it.

I generally diagram all the intervals myself when studying arps and scales and their relationships to each other.

I learned to identify intervals from learning chord construction theory. This site has lessons on chord theory that discusses intervals, and there are a ton of good resources on the internet about intervals and how they related to harmonic theory. That stuff can get very deep, but after a while I've learned to simplify it to just what I need to know to play music.

Once I learned the concept, I built a Microsoft Excel worksheet to mimic the fretboard layout, then I just would plug in all the intervals along the fretboard for a particular chord or scale and then study them and notice the patterns that are created by the scale, and how the scale intervals relate to the intervals of the chords embedded within the scale.

You can just use the fretboard to do this, or you can write it out on graph paper, etc. I find it helpful to figure everything out on my own, rather than rely on published chord books and scale diagrams. But, you do have to spend some time learning the theory before you can do that for sure.

[richb2]

M78W, I am slightly confused.

Mimi talks about using a Bbmaj7 arp over the Gm7 chord to create a Gm9 sound. But I thought that B was the third in the key of G, not Bb. Wouldn't a Bb be a flatted 3?

[gokalp]

hey richb2, I quess we should check with the chord notes so

Gm9 is G Bb D F A

Bbmaj7 is Bb D F A

so actually the song is in Bb maj and Gminor is the VI minor. playing Bbmaj7 arp. Mimi is adding the note A which is the 9th of G.

hope it helps...

[m78w]

We're pretty lazy in jazz so we just say "the third" and assume people will work out whether it's major or minor. So "the 3rd" is relative to the chord it's on, if the chord is Gmaj7 and I say start on the 3rd then you'd start on B, if the chord was Gm7 and I said start on the 3rd, you'd start on Bb.

Hope that helps
MW

[Sailor]

Isn't playing a m7b5 off a 3rd of a Dom7 just a 9th chord? If so it seems easier to just play a G9 arp.

Sailor

[m78w]

The reason most jazz guys play arpeggios from the 3-9 and not the root-9 is that is gets the attention away from the root. When we think of these things as 9th arpeggios then we tend to work off of or around the root. But the m7b5 off of the third allows us to work off of and around the third, a more "jazzy" note.

Rootless arpeggios, especially the 3-9, were a staple of the bebopers, check out any Parker solo and you'll find tons of this kind of stuff.

MW

[Sailor]

Not to complicate things, BUT, why not just always work off the 3rd of a 9th chord rather than complicate with m7b5 thinking???

Sailor

[m78w]

If that works for you than I say go for it. There's no right way to do these things, just different ways.

Traditionally guys would work off of the m7b5, but there were also guys that played the 9th arpeggio.

I guess it's just like in classical music. Why do we use the ii6 V7 I cadence when the IV V7 I will work just as well. It's just a matter of color, or the taste of the composer/improvisor.

If playing the 9th arpeggio works for you then go for it, if you prefer the m7b5 off the third, go for it. The mechanics should not detract from the end result, the music.

MW

[Goofsus4]

Agree that there is no right or wrong way. But my recommendation to Rich would be to definitely start studying the chord construction theory lessons on this site and elsewhere and learn the concept of musical intervals and how they relate to chords and scales. Armed with that information, you can then start figuring out your own system. Before I understood at least the basics of that stuff, the information contained in threads like these would have been absolute gibberish to me.

[richb2]

We're pretty lazy in jazz so we just say "the third" and assume people will work out whether it's major or minor. So "the 3rd" is relative to the chord it's on, if the chord is Gmaj7 and I say start on the 3rd then you'd start on B, if the chord was Gm7 and I said start on the 3rd, you'd start on Bb.

Hope that helps
MW

OK. I was up early this morning trying this out. The maj7#11 seems like a good place to start since Mimi actually has that one (and the m7b5) in her book. So take a G7. The 7 is actually flatted to make the 7. So do I use the actual 7 (which is a F#) or do I use the flatted 7 (which is an F) that gets used in a G7 chord? Seems like the flatted 7 since you say to use F.

But on the m7b5 one, the third is a B. In this case we don't use the flatted third, in a situation analgous to above. Is this because the 3rd is not flatted in a X7 chord?

So what I get is that it is the nature (whether maj or minor) of the arp itself that determines which note you consider to be the 3 or the 7th. Not the G7 itself?

I went though my chord book and it seems that the 3rd in a G7 is not flatted and the 7th, in a G7 is flatted. Easy as that. Please disregard the above.


Here what I think that I need to learn and in this order:

ear training (to understand what "13th sound" sounds like)
chord construction
arpeggios
modes

What do you guys think? Do I have this out of order? Anything else I missed? And do you gys know of a good jazz guitar teacher in Northern Bergen County, NJ, USA?

[m78w]

You should use the b7 as it is a part of the chord, remember nothing is more important than the chord itself, so for G7 G B D and F are the fundamental notes. So if you decide to play the m7b5 off of the 3rd, B, it automatically takes care of the rest of the notes for you as Bm7b5 is B D F A, or the 3 5 7 and 9 of G7.

MW

[richb2]

Is that pretty common to play the m7b5 off the third of a 7th chord? And does that work for a regular dom chord too? In a previous email someone said to use a maj7 arp off the third of a m7. But in that case, the 3rd of a minor 7th chord is flatted. Is that it?

[m78w]

Yes, Parker used that technique all the time, the m7b5 off of the 3rd of a dominant chord.

And yep, the 3rd is flattened on a m7 chord, so on Cm7 the third is Eb.

Mw

[Zhivago]

Hi! An addition...

Here you have, what I think it is, the most complete approach on studying arpeggios for jazz guitar. It covers the arpeggios in the whole neck, as well as the procedure on HOW to study them. I've used this article myself, and it's now also my approach on jazz arpeggios, however, after a while the idea of pattern and caged position starts breaking loose and it's more about the sound and intervals than the pattern. But I found this article to be an amazing contribution. Please, do check it out, you won't regret.

iBreatheMusic.com - Improvisation Tools - Part 2: Arpeggios by Gunharth Randolf

-Zhivago

[sfas]

that is a good article and talks about a lot of stuff that im working on right now. getting complete freedom in playing and breaking away from patterns.