Major Seventh Arpeggios (Maj7) | Guitar Diagrams, CAGED Method, Theory and Licks

How Are Built Maj7 arpeggios?

Major 7 arpeggios are made of root (1), major third (3), perfect fifth (5) and major seventh (7). These four tones are from the major scale as shown in the chart below. They are basically used over Major 7 chords.

How To Play Maj7 Arpeggios On Guitar?

Here are two basic shapes to play major 7 arpeggios on guitar. The first diagram have roots on the sixth, fourth and first string. The second have roots on the fifth, third and first string. Be sure to play these shapes in twelve keys.

Major 7 Guitar Arpeggios - CAGED Charts

The charts below show how to play major 7 arpeggios all over the entire fretboard by using the CAGED method. The first diagram cover the whole guitar neck, the root notes are represented in orange (R).

What's CAGED? 

The five other shapes below are the arpeggio forms built using the CAGED system. CAGED is a very popular method used by many teachers and students based on the basic chord shapes that are : C for C major, A for A major, G for G major, E for E major and D for D major. The brown dotted notes represent the E shape. The blues notes are the C shape. The pink notes, the D shape. The red notes, the A Shape and  the green notes are the G shape.

Major Seventh Arpeggios and  Related Scales

The five guitar diagrams below show the scales that contains a major 7 arpeggio. These scales are named Ionian, Lydian, Lydian #2 and Ionian b6.

The four exercises below show how to connect major 7 arpeggios and drop 3 major 7 chords.

Here is an easy jazz guitar line using a CM7 arpeggio over CM7.

Guitar arpeggios | II-V-I sequence

We can see in this basic II-V-I jazz line how to make connections between different types of arpeggios.

• Ascending D minor 7th arpeggio (two octaves) over the Dm7 chord.
• Descending G dominant 7th arpeggio starting on the major third (B) over G7.
• Ascending C major 7th arpeggio (two octaves)  over the CM7 chord.

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