The Most Important Solo Tools For A Maj7 Chord

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 maj7 chords, 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.

Check out this video on finding and super-imposing Triads in Jazz Solos:

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Content:
0:00 Intro
0:55 Cmaj7 - You can Always Get More Out Of This!
1:33 Chromatic Tension (It's Bebop!)
2:44 Be creative! Don't just run up and down arpeggios
4:03 Em7 - Don't Box yourself in, you are missing out
5:58 Gsus4 - Not Obvious and Very Cool
7:43 Esus4 - Complete Chord And some Color!
9:04 Em pentatonic - Quartal Cmaj7 licks
10:23 Triad Pairs (and the most challenging picking exercise I know)
11:37 Like the video? Check out my Patreon page!

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My name is Jens Larsen, Danish Jazz Guitarist, and Educator. The videos on this channel will help you explore and enjoy Jazz. Some of it is how to play jazz guitar, but other videos are more on Music Theory like Jazz Chords or advice on how to practice and learn Jazz, on guitar or any other instrument.

The videos are mostly jazz guitar lessons, but also music theory, analysis of songs and videos on jazz guitars.

Edited by Luciano Poli

My Gear:

[JensLarsen]

Do you have a favorite Arpeggio, triad or pentatonic scale for a Maj7 chord? Share some good tips :)
Content:
0:00 Intro
0:55 Cmaj7 - You can Always Get More Out Of This!
1:33 Chromatic Tension (It's Bebop!)
2:44 Be creative! Don't just run up and down arpeggios
4:03 Em7 - Don't Box yourself in, you are missing out
5:58 Gsus4 - Not Obvious and Very Cool
7:43 Esus4 - Complete Chord And some Color!
9:04 Em pentatonic - Quartal Cmaj7 licks
10:23 Triad Pairs (and the most challenging picking exercise I know)
11:37 Like the video? Check out my Patreon page!

[captainkoo]

Some can play, some can teach. Few can do both well. You are the exception!!!!

[GJSsongsmith]

How can you dislike this video ? I’ve been playing guitar professionally for a long time and have taught guitar for over 20 years and this guy is the best guitar instructor on YouTube . Every lesson is beautifully presented and thought out . Once again Jens thanks for a great lesson . At this time your videos are keeping a lot of guitar players going . Stay safe and well .

[irvegriffiths]

Jens I think this is possibly the best lesson you’ve ever done, both pedagogically, pace and ideas developmentally and purely applicable straight away. I feel like there are several ‘chunks’ in the lesson I can easily spend half an hour on. Superb! Thank you Jens.

[aylbdrmadison]

Thank you for these excellent jazz lessons. I've played a ton of prog-rock and neo-classical guitar for decades, but always found jazz to be much more elusive, even though I regularly get what's going on in some jazz fusion tunes. So your lessons are really helping me get more of a foothold on jazz, and as a result music in general. That's helping me be more creative in the end too because the more styles we absorb, the more our vocabulary increases.

[RCSmiths]

Learning how to solo with the chords as their characteristics and details is definitely how to serve the song! Cheers man!

[jumemowery]

Thanks Jens. I appreciate your lessons.

[salimbaghli]

Excellent lesson. Thank you again Jens for all you do !

[DiegoStoneDiego]

Thanks! Your content is reinforcing all the knowledge I have and helping me to apply it in a musical way. Greetings from Uruguay!

[johnjacquard]

Love all these things, and whenever I find out your thinking the same way about these things where I independently been working on them, it gives me a little boost of confidence since I beat my ego to death everyday listening to the Giants and greats in our music history

[aptelbruno]

Thank you so much for all this good work - so many roads to rich phrases !

[bradp]

Another exceptional one, Jens (you're still the grand-master of music teachers online). Thanks.

[mikel]

I love how you put up the charts. Thanks

[Jamsville]

9:08 wooo! One of my favorite things to do on a C maj7 chord is to start on low G and play G, A, D, E and repeat that for three octaves. It’s like a G sus2 triad plus the 6th!

[pogchamp]

Quartal arpeggios are really cool and I realised sus2 sus4 and a quartal triad so 1 4 b7 etc are inversions of each other.

[Blueslurch]

Thank you Jens - a great lesson. Recently I bought one of your books, it’s also very helpful. I own a few other Jazz books, but your concept is the most clear for me.

[IsawUupThere]

Alright, I started watching this two hours ago, and I'm almost half way through! Wish me luck!

[Boyanbo]

Very nice! I would be interesting in seeing that challenging picking exercise up close :)

[ToneSunburst]

Thanks Jens! Love he sus4 ideas and the quintal ideas. Already given me hours of ideas to work with. I also like the sound of the Dsus4 over Cmaj7, which gives us D (9th) G(5th) and A(13th). Just tried that over Autumn Leaves bars 3 and 4 and you can just keep the Fsus4 going over BbMaj7 and EbMaj7 :)

[rickjensen]

I like to add in an implied G7alt line over a CMaj7 chord (e.g. include the notes Ab (b9) or D# (#5)) - Joe Pass used to do this a lot.