Improvising With Arpeggios

Are you tired of learning licks from friends and off of recordings? Have you ever wondered where all these licks come from? Who makes them up and what secret formula do they use? I would like to share with you some ideas for developing your own licks.

Let me introduce you to arpeggios. An arpeggio is playing the notes of a chord one by one. For example, a C Major arpeggio in root position is C, E, G. We'll call this a forward arpeggio. A C Major reverse arpeggio in root position would be G, E, C. Playing forward or reverse arpeggios up or down two or more octaves creates a harp-like effect. Start by practicing arpeggios with Major and Minor triads, then move on to seventh chords. Don't forget that you can play the arpeggios in any inversion. Instead of playing C, E, G, and then repeating this an octave higher, you could play the following: C, E, G, E, G, C, G, C, E.

So how do I know which arpeggio to play? Great question. Just because you're playing a C Minor 7 doesn't mean you arpeggiate the entire chord. You could just arpeggiate the C Minor triad. You could also arpeggiate an Eb Major triad as it shares the same notes with a C Minor 7. If you're playing a C Minor 9 you could arpeggiate a G Minor triad.

Hey, how about alternating between triads? On a C Minor 11 you could play reverse arpeggios of the following triads: C Minor, Bb Major, G Minor and Eb Major. This would be played as G, Eb, C, F, D, Bb, D, Bb, G, Bb, G, Eb.

And don't forget the multitude of possibilities with Dominant chords. You have so much freedom with Dominant chords due to their flexibility. Just because everyone else is playing a C7 doesn't mean you can't try altering it. After all, the third and the seventh are what give the Dominant chord its distinctive quality. As long as those notes are not changed, then core of the chord remains the same. The only time you should exercise caution with altering Dominant chords is when you are playing with singers. You have to ensure that the harmony that is being sung is not changed. If you only have a soloist then you only have to ensure that there melody is not affected. However, some soloists enjoy the addition of alterations as they may be more experience and be able to flow well with reharmonizations.

So let's say you don't have any restrictions on altering Dominant chords. Let's consider arpeggios over the C7 chord. Here are some of the main choices and their respective altered chord name:

Now that's a lot of fodder! Put this list in front of you when you're playing and experiment. Mixing and matching any two of these provides over 100 combinations. Of course you'll want to do this for every dominant chord, so this leads to over 500 combinations! You can only imagine how many combinations you get with three or more triads. Trust me, I'm an applied mathematician ;) If you use two, then try playing one forward and the next reverse. For example, if you choose to alternate between D Major and Eb Major over a C7 chord, then play the following: D, F#, A, Bb, G, Eb, F#, A, D, Eb, Bb, G, etc. If you use three different triads, then you have nearly 1000 combinations!