CREATIVE ROCK

In this lesson, Shaun Baxter moves on from using three stacked 3rds to four, to create some delicious fusion-flavoured rock guitar lines.

Shaun Baxter continues his mini-series exploring four-note Mixolydian arpeggios.

So far we’ve looked at ways of building lines using 7th arpeggios from each CAGED shape of Mixolydian mode. Here we’ll use inversions of each arpeggio to shift along the neck. To do that, we should have a recap on 7th-type arpeggios.

Each 7th chord is composed of a root, 3rd, 5th and 7th and there are four different types found in Mixolydian (and the other modes):

Mixolydian mode in A contains the following series of 7th chords (all created by combining various notes of the scale): Of all the above 7th arpeggios, the parental A7 is the most important; C#m7b5, however, the Em7 and Gmaj7 arpeggios are also useful as they sound more settled than the others, representing progressively extended versions of the original A7 chord - A9, A11 and A13, etc). C#m7b5 |-----------------| A9: A C# E G B b7 1 3 5 9 Em7 |-----------------| A11: A C# E G B D b7 1 3 5 9 11 GMaj7 |----------------| A13: A C# E G B D F# b7 1 3 5 9 11 13 An inversion is when the same notes are stacked together in a different order: 1-3-5-b7 A7 (root position) – [root in bass] 3-5-b7-1 A7 (first inversion) – [3rd in bass] 5-b7-1-3 A7 (second inversion) – [5th in bass] b7-1-3-5 A7 (third inversion) – [7th in bass] Using the four inversions we can navigate the neck by arranging the notes of each one in the same way. The following root position A7 is a 1-1-2 configuration (one note lower string, one middle string, and two on the highest string): • A (root) on 7th fret on the fourth string, • C# (3rd) on 6th fret of third string, (b7th) • E (5th) and G on 5th and 8th frets of the second string To move laterally up the neck, one could then play an equivalent of the 1-1-2 configuration for the first inversion of the same arpeggio: • C# (3rd), 11th fret, fourth string, • E (5th), 9th fret, third string, •G(b7th)

and A (root), 8th and 10th frets second string Followed by the second inversion: • E (5th), 14th fret, fourth string, •G(b7th),

12th fret, third string, • A (root) and C# (3rd), 10th and 14th frets, second string

Followed by the third inversion: (b7th), •G 17th fret, fourth string, • A (root), 14th fret, third string, • C# (3rd) and E (5th), 14th and 17th frets, second string Diagram 1 shows the five CAGED shapes of A Mixolydian; Diagram 2 shows how they connect along the neck. It’s important to refer to these as you navigate theneck, as it will place everything into visual context and help prevent you getting lost (initially, at least).

Finally, our examples mostly conclude with a bluesy Mixolydian and/or Minor Blues phrase, just to illustrate how arpeggios can be incorporated into your ‘normal’ playing.

EACh 7Th ChORD Is COMpOsED fROM A ROOT, 3RD, 5Th AND 7Th AND ThERE ARE fOuR DIffERENT TYpEs fOuND IN MIxOLYDIAN MODE