Maj7 chords have a great open yet resolved sound, but even if they sound very much at rest you can easily use them in some very interesting chord substitution concepts.
In this video, I am going to show you some of the great sounding chord progressions you can make using maj7 chords in chord substitution, and later in the video, I am going to show you how changing one note in the voicing gives you a lot more beautiful sounds.
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Sometimes it is hard to come up with something that inspires you when you are improvising a jazz solo. There are a lot of things you can use if you want to improvise over a maj7 chord, and in this video, I am going to give you some of my favourites terms of arpeggios, triads, pentatonics and a few special tricks as well.
You should have a lot of things to start working with at the end of this video, and most of it is really just a new way to use the things you already know.
Focus on how it sounds because I think that is how you are going to be inspired by it, and I will also give you some other tips on getting new ideas that are not only about what notes to play.
Cmaj7 – You can always get more out of this!
The basic material in this video is this chord, the C major scale.
And the one Cmaj7 octave arpeggio
Chromaticism – Pure Bebop
A great way to tap into Jazz as a sound and getting this type of melodies into your playing is to use chromaticism.
The example below has two short lines using different chromatic enclosures and a melody build around a Cmaj7 chord. You can check out more information on different types of chromatic enclosures here: 5 chromatic enclosures
Very often when I listen to a great line and check out what it is and how to use it. Often I find that the melody is actually a basic arpeggio melody. Below are some examples of lines like this that I have come across.
You can use a variation of the Rosenwinkel melody like this:
You can also experiment with inventing melodies playing patterns with a one octave arpeggio. Try to mess around and see if you find something that sounds like an interesting melody.
Em7 – Don’t Box yourself in, you are missing out
The Em7 arpeggio is the diatonic arpeggio from the 3rd of Cmaj7.
If you look at the notes of Cmaj7: C E G B – and look at the notes of Em7: E G B D you can see that they share most of the notes and the Em7 adds a D, the 9th of C. That makes it a great arpeggio to use on a Cmaj7.
In fact the arpeggio found on the 3rd of the chord works great for most chords.
Sometimes you miss great melodies because the focus is on learning in a position, in a scale or in some other shape. This example using an Em7 arpeggio is branching out of the regular patterns and making specific melodies a lot easier to play.
Gsus4 – Not Obivous and Very Cool
The thing with the sus triads is that they sound a little less obvious and that is why they are great to use once in a while. In this first example I am using the Gsus4 triad to make a 5-note group that I can repeat before continuing, another way to change things up in a solo: odd-note groupings.
Another way to play the notes of the Gsus4 triad is this beautiful C quintal arpeggio that is the perfect way to add some larger intervals to your lines. In this case, I am combining it with a sus4 triad which is another great tool on a Cmaj7.
The Esus4 triad is really useful (leave this clip out?)
Esus4 – Complete Chord And some Color!
The Esus4 is really the complete chord, it has an E and a B so the 3rd and 7th of Cmaj7 and also the 13th: A adding some color. Here I am using it as a 3-note grouping and again taking advantage of sus4 triads being less obvious so that it is easier to repeat them in a melody without it getting boring.
Em pentatonic – Quartal Cmaj7 licks
The Pentatonic scale is very closely related to the sound of quartal harmony, and since it is a scale that we guitarists are usually very familiar with then it is a great place to find some interesting lines.
Practicing the pentatonic scale in the way shown below can help you explore melodies similar to what I use in the example.
Triad Pairs
This triad pair works fantastic for Cmaj7, besides that they are also what I used to make the most annoying picking exercise I ever cam up with…. (B-roll) and the way I usually improvise with triad pairs is by chaining together inversions to get different colors on top of the chords. This has a sound that is different from other types of melodies and still produces very strong melodies.
You can also download the PDF of my examples here:
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for topics then please let me know. Leave a comment on the video or send me an e-mail. That is the best way for me to improve my lessons and make them fit what you are searching for.
Exploring the Fretboard and the options you have for chords is a great exercise. This video takes one melody note and one chord and I go through 57 maj7 chords and show you how I come up with voicings, how I listen to harmony and think about the chords.
This video is a bit of an experiment, but exercises like this are very very useful for developing your fretboard knowledge, your taste in harmony and your understanding of chords and how they sound.
The PDF with examples for this video is available through Patreon. You can check out my Patreon Page here: https://www.patreon.com/jenslarsen
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If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for topics then please let me know. Leave a comment on the video or send me an e-mail. That is the best way for me to improve my lessons and make them fit what you are searching for.
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You want to have different choices when it comes to chords, also Maj7 chords. There is no need to play the same things all the time.
In this video, I am going to show you voicings and lines that demonstrate how you can use some other sounds on maj7th chords. Often we only focus on what to play on the V chord, but there are some really great sounds to explore when it comes to the good old (boring?) maj7 chord.
This will really help you add some more ideas and sounds to your vocabulary, whether you are using it for soloing, composing or arranging.
Content:
0:00 Intro 0:37 You Need Maj7th chords for everything 0:53 Example #1 – Maj7(13#5) 1:02 Lydian Augmented with a Twist 1:24 Understanding this Chord 2:00 Creating the Voicing and using it 2:28 Example #2 a line using this sound 2:36 Stealing an idea from Rosenwinkel 2:57 A great Triad Pair 3:21 Example #3 – Maj7(#9#11) 3:30 Modern Jazz or is it? 3:55 The Maj7(#9#11) – A polychord 4:05 Constructing the Chord Voicing 4:32 The Chord Progression 4:54 Example #4 – Placing it in a Scale5:03 Assigning a Scale to the Chord 5:17 Using the Poly-Chord as a triad pair 6:14 Example #5 – Synthetic Maj7th Chords: Maj7(#5#9) 6:24 Augmented Scale Chords 6:41 The Chord and the Progression 7:07 Chord Voicing and interpretation 7:16 Example #6 – 7:24 A Basic II V resolving to a weird I chord 7:50 The 3 Magic Triads in the Augmented Scale 8:17 Like the video? Check out my Patreon Page!
Check out this lesson for more information on The Augmented Scale:
The PDF with examples for this video is available through Patreon. You can check out my Patreon Page here: https://www.patreon.com/jenslarsen
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If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for topics then please let me know. Leave a comment on the video or send me an e-mail. That is the best way for me to improve my lessons and make them fit what you are searching for.
Please subscribe to my YouTube channel and feel free to connect with me via Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook to keep up to date with new lessons, concerts, and releases.
Maj7 Chords are one of the most important tonic chord types. This video will show you 7 different ideas that you can use when improvising over Maj7 chords. The concepts I cover are using different arpeggio types, triad pairs and super-imposed pentatonic scales both common and more exotic.
