Major 7 Arpeggios

Welcome to our lesson on major seven arpeggios and using the major seven arpeggio in your music. The major seven arpeggio contains four notes and is commonly used in improvisation to play either over major chords or to use as an arpeggio substitution. . An arpeggio is just the notes of a chord played one by one. Let’s start by taking a look at the intervals of a major seven arpeggio

Major 7 arpeggio

1, 3, 5, 7

As you can see the major seven arpeggio has four notes, the root, major third, fifth and major seventh. In the key or C, a major 7 arpeggio would have the following notes:

C, E, G, B

The most common use for the major seven arpeggio would be to play over a major chord. Arpeggios have the distinct advantage over scales in that they outline the sound of a chord much more clearly and precisely. As well as just playing the major 7 arpeggio over a major 7 chord, you can also play it over a variety of other chords to create different sounds. If you have been following the articles on this site then you will realize that this process of playing an arpeggio over a different chord is called arpeggio substitution and it is very common in jazz.

As an example of arpeggio substitution, I will show you one common use of the major 7 arpeggio for playing over a minor chord. If we play a C major 7 arpeggio over an Am chord, we produce an Am9 sound. This is because the 9th note of the Am chord (B) is present in the C major 7 arpeggio. To explain this more clearly lets look at the A natural minor scale.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A

The C major 7 arpeggio contains the following notes in relation to the Am chord:

C = Minor third of Am

E = Fifth of Am

G = Minor seventh of Am

B = Ninth of Am

So when we play a C major 7 arpeggio over an Am chord what we are doing is playing the minor third, fifth, minor seventh and ninth notes of the A natural minor scale over the Am chord.

There are many other ways in which you can use the major 7 arpeggio in your improvisations and it is an arpeggio that you will hear jazz players use all the time.

Below I have listed the major 7 arpeggio in all 12 keys

C Major 7 Arpeggio

C E G B

Db Major 7 Arpeggio

Db F Ab C

D Major 7 Arpeggio

D F# A C#

Eb Major 7 Arpeggio

Eb G Bb D

E Major 7 Arpeggio

E G# B D#

F Major 7 Arpeggio

F A C E

Gb Major 7 Arpeggio

Gb Bb Db F

G Major 7 Arpeggio

G B D F#

Ab Major 7 Arpeggio

Ab C Eb G

A Major 7 Arpeggio

A C# E G#

Bb Major 7 Arpeggio

Bb D F A

B Major 7 Arpeggio

B D# F# Bb

You should practice playing through the major 7 arpeggios in all 12 keys because they are very commonly used in jazz improvisation and playing through the major 7 arpeggio like this will be a great technical workout.