The Guitar Player's Resource
The minor add9 arpeggio (and the corresponding chord) has become a staple of most rock guitar players from the late '70s onward. It sounds beautiful, haunting and mysterious, and it's hard to overuse.
If you don't know this arpeggio yet, fear not as you will learn it in the video below.
But if you know it already, then get ready to hear this arpeggio like you've never heard it before!
Like many other arpeggios, the minor add9 arpeggio can completely change its sound if you play it in a different context than usual. In fact, in the right situation you can make it sound bluesy, jazzy, or even strangely dissonant.
You can even play it on altered dominant chords - can you believe it?
Let's see together a few interesting tricks with the minor add9 arpeggio:
If you feel inspired by these sounds and you want to create more along the same lines, then I have another video for you. In this one we see how to combine triads together to create new arpeggios that sound really complex - but are in fact super-easy to play.
And it takes only a few minutes to get started:
Have fun!
Tommaso Zillio is a professional prog rock/metal guitarist and composer based in Edmonton, AB, Canada.
Tommaso is currently working on an instrumental CD, and an instructional series on fretboard visualization and exotic scales. He is your go-to guy for any and all music theory-related questions.
