Arpeggios for Major Chords Part II and Pentatonic Extensions

There is another extension that's very useful. If you're in C go up to A and let's stack a chord from there..ACE over Cmajor..looks like an A minor triad if we extend up from there A C E G looks like A minor7th over Cmaj or Cmajor7th also works great on a Cmaj6th chord. If we extend up from there we have A C E G B..looks like an Aminor7th9th chord over C maj. We can extend further A C E G B D over Cmajor..looks like Aminor7th11 over Cmajor, Cmaj7th etc. So..we can see that A minor triad, and A minor arps work very well over C we can see that A C D E G A an A minor pentatonic works great over Cmajor. If we go back the earlier lesson seeing E minor triad works great over C major then E G A B D E is E minor pentatonic that works great over C major as well. Also..we saw in the previous lesson that Bminor triads/arp ideas can work over Cmaj..then so can B minor pentatonic B D E F# A B sounds great over Cmaj7th#11. So one way to memorize triads and arps and minor pentatonics would be to say..any major chord go up a minor third play minor pentatonic and corresponding arps triads. Take any maj chord and go up a major 6th and play that corresponding minor pentatonic, arps, triad. So for instance..Fmaj7th chord..we go up a maj3 play Aminor, Aminor7th, Aminor Pentatonic. Go up a maj 6th play D minor pentatonic, Dminor triad, or Dminor 7th etc. If you'd like to play lydian or #11 ideas you play a minor pentatonic a half step down from the root so on Fmaj7#11 youd play an E minor pentatonic or Emin triad or Eminor7th arp etc. You should try and put these through 12 keys or at least start plugging them into the major chords you currently use and see how they sound.

Best of luck and thanks for reading and tuning in here. Make sure you record the chord and play over it so you can hear how this all sounds. 

JC

Jason Crowley Arpeggio Ideas over Major Chords PT 1

Let's take a C maj 7th C E G B that's root third fifth seventh. Let's remove the root...we have E G B over Cmaj7th looks like an E minor triad right? let's extend it..E G B D..now that looks like an E minor 7th over Cmaj7th. If we extend that further we get..E G B D F# that works over Cmaj7#11 or C lydian..U can also push this over a regular Cmaj7th some would argue but..if it sounds cool to your ear check it out. We can extend further as well off of Eminor to E G B D F# A..that's a great sound..so that looks like an E minor7with11 over Cmaj or Cmajor7th or Cmaj7#11. make sure you play them up and down not just in one direction so you get different sounds. Also..let's go back to the C E G B..let's start from G and extend up..G B D..looks like a G maj Triad over Cmaj. Let's extend up..G B D F# looks like Gmaj7 over C or Cmaj7th#11. We can extend up from there to G B D F# A..that looks like a Gmaj7th9th for Cmaj/Cmaj7th#11 or you could push that against a regular Cmaj7th chord as well. If we start from B now wed get B D F# A which looks like Bmin7th over Cmaj or Cmaj7th#11. This is just a start but start there. Record a Cmajor and a Cmaj7th chord and try these. Also try recording a Cmaj7#11 and try all these against it as well and see how it sounds. These are very melodic and get you away from scale type playing. More to come thanks for checking it out.
Best, Jason