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In this case I would think of E, G, B, & D as part of CM7. The D is an upper extension that is still consonant with CM7.
Originally Posted by CliffR
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06-06-2025 06:37 AM
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Nah most folks would call that a 3-9 arpeggio. Originally Posted by CliffR
Play your continuous arpeggio exercise but play the 3-9 off of every chord.
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Yes, Joe Pass. Originally Posted by GuyBoden
In olden days playing an arpeggio from the third of the Major was sometimes simply called the "secondary relative minor scale arpeggio", but times have changed.
Joe Pass book?
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True but the IIIm7 is a routine substitute for the IM7. Some would also suggest it's a rootless CMaj9. The chord's correct name is actually the one that fits the musical context. I think... not a sage here on musical theory, so you get what you pay for. Originally Posted by CliffR
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Huh. Maybe I'm not describing my point of view well, or maybe I'm misunderstanding everybody's responses, but section 1 here is what I understand to be the simplest way of looking at this.
https://jenslarsen.nl/tag/arpeggio-from-the-3rd/
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No, I think we're on the same page. I guess I'm just not sure why we're worried about whether to call it an inversion of something or just an arpeggio in its own right. Originally Posted by CliffR
I kind of always think of melodic structures on their own terms. So it's an Em7, but it's common enough to have its own name. 3-9 arpeggio or arpeggio from the third or whatever.
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I don't think this contradicts any of our replies to you? Originally Posted by CliffR
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Jens says "In a similar way we have an Em7 on the 3rd of Cmaj7" He doesn't say "we have an inverted form of the CM7 with an added 9 and without the C". Originally Posted by James W
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Yeah I would never think of it as an inversion Originally Posted by CliffR
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Right. Agreed there's a couple of ways of thinking about this, and initially I thought of this as an extended C. But in Jens' terms, this would be an arpeggio from the third, not an inversion of the original missing the root and with an added 9th, and I now think that's a better conception. And he would further claim that inversions of the original are rare in bebop. That's what I was responding to. And damn this forum for dragging me into a pointless discussion instead of figuring out how to get better at playing jazz! (Joking, Dirk - love the forum!) Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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They're both correct though. Originally Posted by CliffR
The only problem I had with what you said was that the third was the root.
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If you're seriously telling me the third is *not* the root of the Em7, then I think we'll have to agree to disagree. Originally Posted by James W
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This is a matter of utility. If it helps you to think of the E as the third of a C major, then you're playing a major 9 arpeggio that is, in effect, an Em7, then by all means.
If it helps you to think of it as an Em7, then do that.
For me it's always easier to think of the melodic structure I'm playing when I'm practicing.
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And the fifth is also the root... Of G7 ....and so on and so forth... Originally Posted by CliffR
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And how is that different to my statement "I meant an arpeggio with the third as root, so 3/5/7/9 with respect to the original chord" that you described as "wrong"?
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Yes, naming 3-5-7-9 intervals is good in my book. Obviously, if you were taught 'Chord Scale Theory' you would simply be playing an 'E Phrygian' arpeggio over a CM7 chord. Originally Posted by CliffR
Joe Pass would be correct too, with his 'E Secondary relative minor' arpeggio over a CM7 chord.
Music is not logical, it's not to be compared with software programming.
I think knowing all the alternative methods is good.
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The way you put it sounds or sounded confusing - 'arpeggio with the third as root' - as I said 3 is not the root. You were talking about superimposing 3-5-7-9 whereas saying the fifth of Cmajor7 is the root of G7 describes a basic relationship rather than superimposition. Does this make sense? Originally Posted by CliffR
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Maybe? I actually said "an arpeggio with the third as root, so 3/5/7/9 with respect to the original chord"" Maybe my terminology is off, but to me that is semantically the same as saying the "the third of Cmajor7 is the root of Em7" Originally Posted by James W
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Yes, third as root of two different entities, not the same entity. That was the problem! Glad we've finally sorted it out. Originally Posted by CliffR
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There is a danger of getting too analytical about this. My end goal with any strategy is to create the best sounding lines I can, so if I practice playing arpeggios over the chord changes, my aim is to create lines that connect the chords in an elegant way, and I may use any scale or chord tone to do that, which chord inversion it happens to be is kind of irrelevant to me. And of course the chord progression will influence what sets of notes I choose. Originally Posted by CliffR
P.S. - Howard Roberts has an entire section in his Praxis System, Vol. 1, on using chord arpeggios in improvisation. The books are long out of print, so I suppose I could share a link to them here? (Although I recall having done that already in another thread, I'll check my forum attachments.*)
* Yes, I did share them but my link was dead, I fixed it. It's here -- Howard Roberts Books
Last edited by Mick-7; 06-07-2025 at 12:06 AM.
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True, you can apply it to any tune that you would like to know better.... Originally Posted by supersoul
Now that I've been been practicing it, I'm finding that, for me, the "continuous" rather than the "8th notes" aspect of it is what is most important. That is, my main reason for practicing it is not to learn how to outline the chord changes better, as apparently Adam Rogers suggested, but rather to improvise musical lines that flow better over the chord changes, which I think is what Joe Pass had in mind. This entails varying the rhythms of the notes and phrases I play, and ragman's point about playing an unending stream of notes is pertinent to that. I'll try to post a recording later today that illustrates what I'm talking about.
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Alright I have something on point for this. Originally Posted by CliffR
An exercise I sort of adapted from something Brad Shepik had me doing …
Pick a range — octave, position, string set, whatever — and voicelead arpeggios in quarter notes. The trick is that you don’t change direction until you run out of notes.
So start on the lowest note in the position, ascend while play chord tones in quarter notes, switching as smoothly as possible at the barline *without changing directions.*
When you reach the top of the range, start descending and do the same without changing direction. When you run out of space, you switch again to ascending, and so on.
This is me doing this over If I Were a Bell. I’m in F because I haven’t done this one in a minute.
The first chorus is all rooted arpeggios (G7-C7-Fmaj7, etc). Then There’s a brief pause and I do a second chorus with all 3-9 arpeggios (Bm7b5 - Em7b5 - Am7 etc). Brief pause and the third chorus is 5-11 (Dm7 - Gm7 - C7 etc).
That last one is weird because the choices over the major7 chord don’t really make much sense, but I like practicing it. That triad off the fifth of a major chord is a great sound and the b7 resolve down to the third of the major chord. It’s cool stuff and mad brain work so I like doing it, but I wouldn’t call it practical.
In the interest of full disclosure, I did record a chorus going 7-13, but it was a mess so I’m keeping that one to myself.
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I don't think that's what Joe Pass had in mind as in the book "Joe Pass Guitar Style" where he talks about this exercise he specifically asks to focus on "8th note lines" and in the examples, the lines outline the changes. Originally Posted by Mick-7
The distinction you are making with "outlining changes" and playing "lines that flow over the changes" is I believe playing the changes vs floating over the changes with the parent scale (or harmonic generalization). So basically playing melodies that don't clash with the harmony vs outlining the harmony. They are both part of the jazz language.
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What's with the quarter notes? Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Is that a problem? Originally Posted by Tal_175
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