My secret arpeggio and 3 places I use it!
Sometimes it is great to look beyond the diatonic arpeggios for some rich or more colorful sounding arpeggios.
This video is about one of these arpeggios that I really use a lot for melodic minor, altered or Lydian dominant sounds.
Finding the arpeggios
Usually we find arpeggios by stacking 3rds in a scale, but in some cases we can get some really great sounds by building chords in other ways.
The arpeggio I want to talk about in this lesson is the dom7th(#5) arpeggio. The A7(#5) is shown here below:
Where does the dom7th(#5) chord belong?
There are a few places where you can construct this arpeggio.
It is of course found in the whole tone scale, and a can be constructed in both harmonic major and minor.
In this lesson I will focus on it in the context of melodic minor. Purely because that is where I use it the most.
The dom7th(#5) can be found in two places in the melodic minor scale.
If we take the A7(#5) as an example then it can be found on the 5th degree of D melodic minor:
And also on the 7th degree of Bb melodic minor:
Using the arpeggio
If we look at the A7(#5): A C# F G then it is worth noticing that it is in fact an A augmented triad and an A.
The fac that the augmented triad is a part of the arpeggio is probably one of the reasons why it is so useful for a lot of different chords in melodic minor. The augmented triad sound is a big part of the melodic minor sound. Just think of an DmMaj7 where the upper part of the chord is an augmented triad.
The Altered dominant
When using the arpeggio on an altered dominant we have two options.
The altered dominant in this case is a Db7alt. The two dom7(#5) arpeggios we have available are then A7(#5) and C#7(#5) (or Db)
In this example I am using the A7(#5). If we relate the A7 arpeggio to a Db root we get: A(b13) C#(root) F(3rd) G(b5). So there is a lot of color in the arpeggio.
The Abm7 line is a descending Bmaj7 sweep arpeggio followed by a small turn with a leading note on before the root.
On the Db7alt the line is really just the A7(#5) arpeggio adding a B to resolve to the 3rd of Gbmaj7 in bar 3.
Tonic minor
In the second example I am using the line on a tonic minor chord. The A7(#5) related to D would be: A(5), C#(Maj7), F(3rd), G(11).
The first bar is really just a simple Dm line with a leading note under the root. The 2nd bar is coming from the A7(#5) arpeggio that finally resolves to the 9th(E) of Dm6 (or DmMAj7)
Lydian Dominant
The Lydian dominant example is using a IV IVm progression in F major. In this case it is in fact II bVII I that is being used, but the main idea is of course subdominant, subdominant minor to tonic.
The line on the Gm7 is first encircling the root of the chord and then ascending a Gm7 arpeggio with an added A.
The Eb7 bar is first the A7(#5) arpeggio followed by Bb and C to resolve to the 3rd(A) of Fmaj7. The ending is tagget with a small pentatonic turn.
Make you own lines with these arpeggios
The examples I went over here are of course only a glimpse at a quite vast amount of options available with this arpeggio.
The best way to get this arpeggio in to your playing is to use it in different situations in songs that you already know so that you can explore the sound of the arpeggio.
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