Hello,

I am currently working on playing 2-octave scales up the neck, as my teacher says this will definately help in making smooth basslines and broaden my knowledge of the fretboard.

Anyway, I am also trying to learn the same thing with arpeggios: major, major 7th, and 7th chords specifically. For some reason I am having trouble with them. My teacher says to start with the lowest note all the way to the highest (say its an C major chord the lowest would be open E). I can't seem to go about this smoothly. I've been playing, for example, the Fmajor7th chord:

open E, F, A (5th fret on E), C, E (7th fret on A), and then switching from my 4th finger on E to my first finger on F right next to it (8th fret on A), and then continuing on up the neck till I get as far as I can go. My teacher says to keep ascending and not to go backwards to a note (like after I played that E on the 7th fret of A not to go backwards and play F on the 3rd fret of D). Am I doing this correct? But since it's an arpeggio, I just play up as far as I can then go down, that would make the arpeggio?

Um, hope I made this clear enough. Heh, it is hard to explain some things without showing.

Thanks! :)
Stephanie
:confused:

PS: Hope this hasn't been explained before. I thought there was an arpeggio-related thread sometime ago, but I can't seem to find it.

hi
whatever feels most comfortable, you play how you wanna play- its the only way you'll learn how to learn.

by learning whats most comfortable to you you will lessen the cramps ect and when making basslines you will automatically revert to whats most comfortable.
later
Lukas

Well, I don't know if this helps, but, if I were to play Fmaj7, as many octaves as possible, I would probably play it differently going up or going down.

(The fret position and string in parentheses).

Up, I would probably play: E (openE), F (1:E), A (openA), C (8:E), E (7:A), F (8:A), A (7:D), C (10:D), E (9:G), F (10:G), A (14:G), C (17:G).

Does that defeat what your teacher was trying to tell you?

Nice ED Fuqua!!!!

A lot of information to learn. Go ahead Stephanie.

Thanks guys for the help! :)

Jazzbo, your approach is alot smoother than what I was shown, easier to play. I'm sure my teacher doesn't mind how I play it, as long as I was playing the right notes.

Ed, thanks for that info on inversions. We have worked with inversions and I'm assuming that's what he is trying to do with these arpeggios.

Thanks again,
Stephanie