I am going to demonstrate a few exercises and then give you a few examples and

of lines and how I constructed them. In this lesson I am only going to be concerned
with the 3 note variation of these chords, since that is the one that is the easiest to
put to use.
All my lines and exercises are going to be related to a II Valt I in Bb so we need to
check out the Bb major scale and the F7 altered/F# melodic minor scale
before we start working on making lines.

Exercises
First let's just talk a bit about what you might practice to prepare for making lines
with stacks of 4ths arpeggios in them. Here are the chords for the Bb major scale
on two sets of strings. I'd suggest you practice them both as chords and as
arpeggios to get technically prepared for using them in improvisations.

As you might already see we can't really name the chords in the way we are used
to with diatonic chords and triads. You chose them by looking at the notes they
contain and how that relates to the chord you are playing them over. This can be a
bit heavy if you are not used to think like that, but is actually a very useful skill for
"the thinking improviser." It will also help you to analyze transcriptions and identify
what s being played.
In my examples I chose the arpeggios for the Cm7 chord on the criteria that I don't
want it to contain an A, because I want to save that note for the F7. That is a
choice, and not even a route that I always take myself, but for now it makes the
lines easier to hear.
Since we don't often make solo lines by only moving up and down a string, but
more often make use of positions, it can be very handy to also try to play some
scale positions in diatonic stacks of 4ths like the one I have written out here below:

Playing stacked 4ths requires a lot of string changing for the right hand which is a
bit difficult and for the left hand you need to bar with different fingers to be able to
play the them which can also be a bit demanding. Frank Gambale has a few good
left hand exercises for this in one of his books. As for the right hand I generally

alternate pick the arpeggios as you can see in the video, mostly because I like the
sound of that sort of picking better than sweeps or economy when I play these
arpeggios.
Here are the chords for the F altered/F# melodic minor scale.

I'd suggest you also try to arpeggiate these chords and play F# melodic minor in
diatonic stacks of 4ths in the way that I did it with the Bb major scale.

II V I lines with stacked 4ths

Here's the first example of a line on the II Valt I in Bb major:

If I break down the construction of the line it is an EbMaj7 shell voicings followed
by an stack of 4ths beginning on G. Then on the F7alt I am playing the Coltrane 4
note pattern, and following that up with a stack of 4ths on the A in F# melodic
minor. I resolve the high Ab to the major 7 of Bb.

The 2nd example is first chaining to stack of 4th arpeggios on the Cm7, one from F
and one from D. Then I play a sort of clich F#m melody which is followed by an
F#mMaj7 arpeggio that resolves to F the 5th of Bb major.

The 3rd example is beginning with an Ebmajor 7th arpeggio that is then followed
by a stack of 4ths from c. On the F7 altered I have made a melody using two
stacks a whole step apart: one from Eb and on from Db. This pair is a useful tool
when making lines and when playing chords in my experience.

I start with a Cm9 arpeggio which I then follow with a stack of fourths played
descending from C to D. This arpeggio I then can shift up a half step to fit it on the
F7 chord and then I lead that into an Ebm7 shell voicing which with a few notes
from the scale is resolved to the 9 of the Bb.