Today I’m going to present another two interesting and intriguing ways to repurpose the sus4b2, or maj7b5, arpeggio shapes that we’ve been working with in the previous three lessons (GW November, December and Holiday 2017 issues) and show you how to use them to create harmonically tense and haunting sounds that convey dark, jazz-flavored chord qualities and voicings using single notes. I’ll then demonstrate some cool ways to apply these arpeggios to melodic patterns across a standard, four-chord minor-key progression.
For reference and review, FIGURE 1 depicts the two diagonal multi-octave fretboard paths I previously showed you for Asus4b2, each based on the four-note sequence A Bb D E, which then repeats in higher octaves. If we were to play either of these patterns again but change our accompanying bass note from A to Bb, or to C or G, the tonality then changes to Bbmaj7b5, C13, or Gm6-9, respectively.
Now, if we were to change the bass note to E, which is a tritone away from Bb—meaning three whole steps above or below—we get a darkly dramatic Em7b5(sus4) sound, with A being heard as the fourth, Bb as the flat-five, D as the flat-seven and E as the root. The minor third, G, is not actually played here but is implied in context.
So that’s one new use for our four-note arpeggio shape—to get a m7b5 sound with a sus4. The other new use I spoke of is presented in FIGURE 2 and creates what’s known as an altered dominant sound, which is a tension-filled dominant seven arpeggio (or chord) that has both a raised, or “sharp-ed,” fifth and ninth (7#5#9).
What we’re doing in this example is going back to