that with some simple phrasing, and you
have a nice lick that breaks you out of the
pentatonic rut, while still sounding bluesy.
To take the idea further, check out Fig. 4
and Fig. 5, which are two examples of playing over E7 and D7 in measures 9 and 10
of the progression.
In both examples, I’m keeping it as
simple and melodic as I can, while still
picking notes directly from the arpeggios.
To stop them from sounding like exercises, I’m focusing on the top two or three
strings of the arpeggios and throwing in
notes from the pentatonic scale whenever
possible to help ground me in the blues
Just because you have arpeggios spanning multiple
octaves at your disposal doesn’t mean that you need
to play more than a note or two from each in order
to connect with your chord progression.
language. Just because you have arpeggios
spanning multiple octaves at your disposal
doesn’t mean you need to play more than
a note or two from each in order to con-
nect with your chord progression. As you
learn to incorporate these arpeggios into
your playing, I’m sure you’ll discover that
a few of the notes you were already playing
outside of the pentatonic box are actually
from the arpeggios—you just didn’t know
it yet! There’s clearly a lot more you can do
with arpeggios, and hopefully this gets your
creative juices flowing to create some licks
of your own.
Fig. 3
44 &
A7
oe oe˙
Fig. 3
D7
oe# oe ˙™
A7
oeoe oeoeoeoeoeoeoeoe b oeoe
3
oeoeoe˙™
3
5
85
5
7
7
85
6
757875
˙
757
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
44 &
E7
OE
oeoeoeoe #J oe
oeJ
D7
oe#
oeJ oeoeoe˙
3
3
3
7574
5758
5
5
7
˙
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
44 &
E7
‰ oeJ
oe oeoe˙
D7
‰ oe #J
oeoeoe˙
3
3
457
578
5
7
˙
