S E P R

Arpeggios through the cycle of 4th – Step 7

Let's now connect the shapes using the cycle of 4th exercise!

The Cycle of 4th – Easier Than Connecting Shapes

After connecting all arpeggios all over the neck, it’s time to play them using the cycle of 4th.

The aim here is to nail those shapes so there is no hesitation when you need to draw upon any of them during an improvisation.

After playing through the first five: E shape – A shape – D shape – G shape – C shape, you can easily repeat it all, starting on a Bb.

Here’s some good news. This is much easier than what you did in the two previous steps when you connected the shapes.

Still, it has to be done before you move on to the final step, so ensure you can play all four arpeggios using the concept of the cycle of 4th.

Here’s TAB for doing this for a maj7 arpeggio.

Do continue up from Bb until you run out of fretboard. Your goal should be to do this without TAB, looking at the fretboard instead.

As the ultimate test, do it with your eyes closed.

Here’s the same exercise using dom7 arpeggios, again, don’t stare at this TAB for too long!

When you can successfully play all arpeggios like this using the cycle of 4th you can move on to the final step, an arpeggio master exercise.

There are only four CAGED arpeggio shapes to learn on the guitar, the min7, the maj7, the dom7, and the min7b5.

In the step-by-step arpeggio course, we master all these arpeggios in all CAGED shapes, an essential skill to acquire if you want to improvise.

Just like in step 6, we are playing all our extended barre chords around the major scale (Ionian). When you can do it, you’re almost there!

However, now we play using the cycle of 4th & 3rd. To complete the step, you must practice in all twelve keys.

Spytunes chords, scale, and arpeggio software, Chordacus is a refined version of the so-called CAGED system.

Now available as both a chromatic (original version) and “within a key”, developed with the help of a Spytunes student.

This was a guitar lesson about arpeggios and the cycle of 4th, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and learn guitar with Spytunes.

Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.