5/3/2015 Exploring Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios For Jazz Guitar | MattWarnockGuitar.

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Exploring Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios For Jazz Guitar

Joe Pass was a master of every aspect of jazz guitar playing, as he could easily switch between
chord melody, chord solos, solo guitar and single-notes in a seamless and highly creative
fashion.

While I have always been a big fan of Joe Pass chord soloing ideas, and taken a lot of influence
from that side of his playing into my own chord work, there is another side to Joes soloing that
we can learn a lot from by check out in the practice room, arpeggios.

By looking at Joe Pass arpeggios and arpeggio patterns in the woodshed, you will be able to learn
how Joe liked to outline common chord progressions, expanding your knowledge of Joes
playing and your own soloing chops at the same time.

In this lesson well explore Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios in major keys, the concepts behind these
patterns, and look at how you can apply them to your own practice routine and jazz guitar soloing
lines and phrases.

Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios 1

The first pattern based on Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios that well explore, uses two common diatonic

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5/3/2015 Exploring Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios For Jazz Guitar | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

superimpositions over a short ii V I jazz chord progression.

Over the iim7 chord, the notes are bases on the 1-3-5-7 arpeggio, but when you hit the V7 chord,
there is a 3 to 9 arpeggio being used, F#dim7 over D7, which highlights the 3rd, 5th, b7th and
b9th of the V7 chord in that part of the measure.

Joe Pass was a big fan of using 3 to 9 arpeggios in his lines, and they are a great way that you
can expand your playing over ii V I chords, without stepping too far outside the diatonic key area.

To finish things off, there is a D triad being used to outline the 5th, 7th and 9th of the Gmaj7
chord.

Playing a major triad from the 5th of a maj7 chord is also something Joe Pass loved to do, and
its another easy way to focus your lines on the color tones of the chord you are on, in this case
the 9th, without worrying about playing a big scale or two-octave arpeggios.

Click to Vm P .

Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios 2

In this second Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios pattern, well be expanding on the 3 to 9 idea from the
previous example as you now apply this concept to the iim7 chord as well as the V7 chord in a
long, 3 bar, ii V I jazz guitar lick.

In this case, you play a Cmaj7 arpeggio over the underlying Am7 chord, to highlight the 3, 5,7 and
9 of that chord, before bringing in the F#dim7 over D7, which again implies a D7b9 sound that you
resolve to the D, the 5th, of the Gmaj7 chord in bar three of the pattern.

Using 3 to 9 arpeggios is a great way to expand your m7 soloing chops, without branching outside
a fingering you already know, since you are playing a maj7 arpeggio over a m7 chord.

Click to Vm P .

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5/3/2015 Exploring Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios For Jazz Guitar | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios 3

This final Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios pattern uses the 3 to 9 arpeggio over the iim7 chord, again
playing Cmaj7 over Am7, before you dig into a wide interval pattern over the V7 chord, something
that Joe Pass loved to do, especially in his solo guitar playing.

These rising 5ths outline the Root, 5th, #11 and 9th of the underlying D7 chord, before resolving to
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a more scale-based phrase in the third measure of the pattern. Search

This type of intervallic playing is a great way to expand your dominant 7th soloing vocabulary, and
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up your arpeggio and scale-based lines, but the fingerings can be tricky to get down.

So make sure you use a metronome and work slowly with this pattern at first, before increasing
How
the To Playand
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taking it 7th
further from there in the woodshed.
Arpeggios For Jazz Guitar

How To Play m7 Arpeggios For
to Vm P .
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Jazz

How
To Play m7b5 Arpeggios For
Jazz Guitar

Practicing Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios

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Once you have worked out these three patterns, youll want to explore them and the concepts
behind these licks further in the practice room.

Here are five exercises that I like to use when working out arpeggios patterns such as these in the
woodshed that will help you dig deeper into these important and cool-sounding phrases.

1. Practice each pattern with a backing track in all 12 keys around the neck.

2. Use the 3 to 9 concept to write 5 patterns of your own over ii V I chords.

3. Solo over All The Things You Are or a similar standard and use one, then all of these patterns
to outline the ii V I changes in that tune.

4. Write 5 patterns of your own that use the wide, 5th, intervals that you learned in the third Joe
Pass Arpeggios Pattern from this lesson.

5. Put on a ii V I backing track in G, and solo using only 5th intervals around the neck. Repeat this
exercise in 12 keys.

Do you have a question or comment about these Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios? Post your thoughts
in the comments section below.

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3 Comments
1. Marty, September 26, 2013:
great lesson Matt, I especially liked the 2nd one. the 3rd one was too whack for me, I could
never internalize it. :)

2. Britt Reed, September 26, 2013:

Man that last ii V I was messed up even for my earsLOL
Fun stuff all!

3. jackson ordean, October 24, 2013:

All good as the first and sometimes second phrase in the progression begged my ears to
resolve in many different ways.

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5/3/2015 Exploring Joe Pass ii V I Arpeggios For Jazz Guitar | MattWarnockGuitar.com | MATT WARNOCK GUITAR

The third and most strange iteration especially provoked me and I came up with second and
resolving phrases that really were fun for me.

All through I liked using a barred D flatted 9 to set the tension for the Maj 7. 251s are just
like a sweetly baited mousetrap! {;^)

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