How to Play Dominant Seventh Arpeggios in Five Positions

Title: How to play dominant 7th arpeggios in five patterns.

How to play dominant seventh arpeggios in Five Positions

How do you play dominant seventh arpeggios?

The dominant 7th chord and arpeggio come from the major scale. If you start on the G major scale and go up five letters you arrive at D. This chord becomes D7 if you add another third to the last note in the D chord. D, F#, A, and adding the C note makes this chord D dominant 7th.

Check out my page on playing the G major scale here.

This chord D7 makes you want to resolve back to the G major chord.

In a chord progression that starts on G and leads to other chords from G major, (C, Am, Em, F#m7b5, Bm) the chord before returning to G major would most likely be D7.

This is because if you examine the notes of D7, (D, F#, A, and C) some notes have a pulling sound to resolve back to the notes of the G chord, G, B, D.

From the D7 chord, D is in both D7 and G. The third, F# has a strong pull toward G, the root note of the G chord, due to the half step between these two notes. The A note is more natural since it is exactly between going down to G or up to the B note, both being in the G chord. The last note C has a strong pull towards the B note in the G major chord. This is also due to being only a half step away from the B note in the G major chord.

To me, the only other chord that would have a strong pull in the key of G would be the F#mb5 chord.

Pattern One

Here is the first D Dominant 7th arpeggio.

Every D is considered the root or 1, every F# is the (3) major 3rd, every A is the (5) perfect 5, and all C notes are (b7) dominant 7th’s.

Start by using the first finger for second fret notes, fourth finger for fifth fret notes, second finger for the third fret, and third finger for fourth fret notes.

Pattern Two

D7 arpeggio with the root on the 5th string — D7 arpeggio starting on the fifth

Here is the second D Dominant 7th arpeggio at the fifth fret.

It has the root on the fifth string also.

First, use your first finger for notes at the fifth fret. Next use the fourth finger for the C and F# notes on strings six, five, and the first. Lastly, use the third finger for notes on the seventh fret.

Pattern Three

D7 arpeggio starting on C the b7 — D7 arpeggio in seventh position

Here is the third D Dominant 7th arpeggio at the seventh fret.

Notice that it has the root on the sixth string.

First, use finger two for the C notes on the sixth string. Next, use the fourth finger for all notes on the tenth fret. Third finger for F# on the fifth string. Last, for notes on the seventh fret use your first finger.

Pattern Four

D7 arpeggio starting on the 10th fret — D7 with the root on the sixth string 10th fret

Here is the fourth D Dominant 7th arpeggio at the tenth fret.

It has the root on the sixth string.

First, try starting out with your second finger followed by your first and fourth fingers. Next, on the fourth string, use fingers one and three. From there use the second finger, first, fourth, and finish with the first finger.

Pattern Five

D7 arpeggio with root on the fourth string — D7 starting on the third F# in 12th position

Here is the last D Dominant 7th arpeggio located at the twelfth position.

Start with the third finger. Next, use the first finger on the twelfth fret notes. For the C and F# notes, use the fourth finger. Lastly, use the second finger on the third string, followed by the first, third, and second finger ending on the first string.

Considerations

Finally, the fingering is only a suggestion, experiment with what feels natural to you.

In Closing

Lastly, memorize all patterns. Learn how to build any dominant 7th chord by knowing the formula 1, 3, 5, b7. Practice playing each of these patterns over a D7th backing track from YouTube.

Also, download a pdf of these D7th patterns here.