Continuing our exploration of musically intriguing ways to repurpose the four-note sus4b9 arpeggio we looked at in the November[1] and December 2017[2] issues, I’d now like to show you yet another cool way to apply it and also introduce an exotically interesting and enigmatic-sounding variation that entails the challenging use of a wider interval and fret-hand stretch.
To review, in the previous two lessons, I presented a pair of diagonal fretboard paths for an Asus4b9 arpeggio, spelled A Bb D E, or 1 b2 4 5, both based on the same four-note shape that’s initially played across two adjacent strings, two notes per string, then repeats in higher octaves on higher strings.
We then took both paths, one beginning on the low E string’s fifth fret and the other on the 12th fret of the A string, and transposed all the notes down a half step and one fret, using the same shapes.
Played over the same A bass note, this harmonic reassignment of the notes transformed our four-note arpeggio to Amaj7b5, starting on the seventh: G# A C# Eb, or 7 1 3 b5.
We then looked at a variation in which we “un-flatted” the fifth, Eb, raising it to the perfect fifth, E natural, which gave us the more common and conventional-sounding Amaj7 arpeggio, again starting on the seventh—G# A C# E, or 7 1 3 5. Finally, we changed our accompanying bass note to the relative minor tonal center of F# (minor), which instantly yielded two additional and very cool arpeggio sounds to play with—F#m6-9 and F#m9.
Continuing along these lines, FIGURE 1 shows last month’s two different Amaj7b5 arpeggio paths transposed down a whole step and two frets to Gmaj7b5, in each case starting on the seventh—F# G