Scales & Arpeggios

Learning scales and arpeggios on guitar is a very important part of jazz's apprenticeship. You will find a whole load of free guitar resources on this blog section as guitar neck diagrams, licks, TABs, formula charts and theory. These jazz lessons don't follow a sequence, you can jump into them in any order you choose.

Harmonization of the Melodic Minor Scale - Chord Shapes and Theory
- By Stef Ramin
- On 07/26/2019
- 0 comments
In this lesson we will see how to harmonize the melodic minor scale in thirds with seventh chords. In other words we will see how to build seventh chords by stacking thirds from each degree of the melodic minor scale.

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What Scale to Play Over 7b9 Chord
- By Stef Ramin
- On 07/12/2019
- In Scales & Arpeggios
- 0 comments
Dominant 7 flat ninth chords (7b9) are generally related to the fifth mode of the harmonic minor scale known as Phrygian dominant scale, which makes it the most obvious choice for improvising over 7b9. However, we will see in this article that there are many other options.

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5 Easy Jazz Blues Arpeggio Studies For Guitar

This lesson contains five free guitar studies for beginners that outline the use of arpeggios over a Bb jazz blues progression. There are different kinds of jazz blues progressions. The one that is used in this eBook is built with a secondary dominant (VI7), a passing diminished (#IVdim7) and a turnaround (I7, VI7, iim7, V7).

Bb7	Eb7	Bb7	%
I7	IV7	I7	I7
Eb7	Edim7	Bb7	G7(b9)
IV7	#IVdim7	I7	VI7
Cm7	F7	Bb7 G7 (b9)	Cm7 F7
iim7	V7	I7 VI7	iim7 V7

How to Practice Pentatonic Scales On Guitar
- By Stef Ramin
- On 06/01/2019
- 0 comments
What are Pentatonic Scales?

Pentatonic scales are scales with five notes per octave. They are frequently used in music all over the world. The word "pentatonic" comes from the Greek word "pente" meaning five and "tonic" meaning tone.

Talk of "the" pentatonic scale generally make reference to the major pentatonic scale and its relative minor. It's a mistake, indeed there are many types of pentatonic scales (Egyptian, Ritusen, Man gong, Altered, Locrian...).

Pentatonic scales are considered earlier than heptatonic scales (seven-note scales) and can be divided into two categories :
- Containing semitones (hemitonic)
- Without semitones (anhemitonic)
The purpose of this post is to propose some tips and ideas for practicing and develop pentatonic scales.
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12 Types of Major Scales - Guitar Lesson With Diagrams
- By Stef Ramin
- On 04/16/2019
- 2 comments
When we think about major scales, the first that comes to mind is the Ionian mode, best know as THE major scale. However, there are several other types of major scales (Ionian #5, Lydian augmented #2, Ionian b6) which deserve a little more attention. Here they are listed with guitar shapes and formulas.

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II V7 Bebop Patterns - David Baker - Analysis and Scale Diagrams
- By Stef Ramin
- On 03/21/2019
- In Jazz Guitar Lessons
- 0 comments
This blog article is related to the video tutorial published on JGL YouTube channel. It contains 10 II V7 jazz bebop guitar patterns with analysis and scale shapes. These lines come from the first chapter of David Baker's book "How To Play Bebop Vol.2 - Learning the bebop language". They correspond to the first ten exercises of the section named "The Use of The II V7 Progression in Bebop".

You 'll find in this lesson a quick analysis of each pattern with scale diagrams (Dorian, Dorian bebop, Mixolydian, dominant bebop, Mixolydian b13, altered, mixo-blues and half-whole diminished).

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What's a Dominant 7 Arpeggio - How to Play it on Guitar
- By Stef Ramin
- On 03/05/2019
- In Scales & Arpeggios
- 0 comments
What Are Dominant 7 Arpeggios?

Dominant 7 arpeggios are built with root (1), major third (3), perfect fifth (5) and minor seventh (b7). They are basically used to play over dominant 7 chords.

Dominant 7 Arpeggio 1 3 5 b7

G7 G B D F

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Major 7 Arpeggio - Free Guitar Cheat Sheets
- By Stef Ramin
- On 02/15/2019
- In Guitar Cheat Sheets, Methods & Books
- 0 comments
You will find here a free cheet sheat about major 7 arpeggios. This quick guitar lesson provides a brief description of major 7 arpeggios including neck diagrams and formula charts. This document is available in three versions : PDF (for printing), JPEG and PNG for on-line publication.

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How to Use a Tritone Substitution - 6 Guitar Licks
- By Stef Ramin
- On 02/08/2019
- In Licks & Transcriptions
- 0 comments
What's a Tritone Substitution?

The tritone substitution is one of the most common substitution found in jazz. The basic application of a tritone chord substitution is to take any 7th chord and play another 7th chord that has its root a tritone away from the original. This guitar lesson demonstrates how you can play scales and arpeggios starting from the b5 (a tritone away) of the V7 chord in a II V I chord progression. This way you will highlight altered tones as the b9 and the #11.

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Extended Diatonic Arpeggios - Upper-Structure of Chords and Superimposition
- By Stef Ramin
- On 11/23/2018
- In Scales & Arpeggios
- 0 comments
When learning how to play jazz guitar, one of the most important device to master is to play each tone of a chord in order to outline a specific progression. This is what we call arpeggios. They are great melodic tools when you want to highlight the chords you are soloing over.

This article is focused on diatonic seventh arpeggios and their extensions. In a first time, before applying these extensions, it is recommended to have a very strong knowledge of the triads, both the chords and the arpeggios.

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Three Kinds Of Minor Blues Scales
- By Stef Ramin
- On 10/23/2018
- In Scales & Arpeggios
- 0 comments
The minor blues scale is mostly referred to as the minor pentatonic scale with a b5 thus giving the interval pattern 1 - b3 - 4 - b5 - 5 - b7. However, few musicians know that there are three types of minor blues scales depending on wether you incorporate the flat fifth (b5), the major third (3) or the major seventh (7) to the minor pentatonic scale. In this lesson you will learn how to build, play and recognize each of these three minor blues scales.

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Arpeggio Practice - Seventh Chords - 4 Essential Exercises
- By Stef Ramin
- On 09/09/2018
- 0 comments
Arpeggios are essential musical tools that allow you to build pure and beautiful lines while highlighting the harmony. When playing over chord changes, using arpeggios is the most efficient way to connect these chords together. This lesson provides four arpeggio exercises with tabs, standard notation and diagrams that will help improve your guitar skills and your theoretical knowledge.

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List and Comparison of Music Scales - Formula Charts
- By Stef Ramin
- On 06/25/2018
- 0 comments
Here is a list of the main musical scales and modes.

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How To Play Pentatonic Scales Over Giant Steps
- By Luke-Adams
- On 01/16/2018
- In Jazz Guitar Lessons
- 0 comments
Giant Steps is one of those tunes in jazz that sends a bolt of fear through a lot of young or even experienced jazz musicians. It certainly does that to me anyway! The fast harmonic rhythm and the seemingly distant relationships between the chords means it is a very daunting challenge.
However, there is a very cool and simple way of practicing navigating through these changes and it involves using 3 different pentatonic scales.

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Jazz Guitar Scale Exercises – Position Shifts with the Melodic Minor Scale
- By Gareth-Evans
- On 01/14/2018
- In Scales & Arpeggios
- 0 comments
Learning and playing scales can be an important part of any guitarist’s practise regime. By playing scales in a variety of ways we can develop our familiarity with the fretboard beyond simply going up and down scales. In this tutorial we will look at combining two different scale patterns by shifting between them on various strings. For this we are going to use two patterns of an Eb Melodic minor scale, patterns 2 and 3. The Melodic minor scale consists of the intervals R 2 b3 4 5 6 7 (R is for the Root note).

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Why Jazz Guitarists Should Study The CAGED Method
- By Chris-Primeau
- On 12/24/2017
- In Guest Posts
- 0 comments
Why Jazz Guitarists Should Study The CAGED Method

When I first joined my high school jazz band, it was a humbling experience. I knew my major scales and modes, but only with the roots on the E and/or A string. This worked fine for playing pop music, but the way jazz progressions were always changing chords with each measure, my hands were constantly getting lost. If I was playing a C major line in eighth position, how did I switch to a Bb mixolydian scale without jumping my hand up or down and making the improvisational idea totally disjointed ? I could never understand how jazz guitarists could keep their ideas going as the chords changed from moment to moment. And how did players like Joe Pass know how to run an improvised line right into a chord voicing? Additionally, as I progressed to the higher registers of the guitar, I could never tell where I was in the scale anymore. It seemed impossible!

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