I started lessons with bassist Bob Magnusson last week. He's played with Sarah Vaughan and Joe Pass and just about everyone else.

I'm still working on repertoire and guitar-specific concepts with Bob Boss, so Magnusson is taking me back to fundamentals. On the first lesson, he gave me a monster arpeggio workout that he's been doing since he was in Sarah Vaughan's band in the 70s.

It goes like this. Starting with a Cmaj7 arpeggio, C E G B, play the lowest root note on your instrument. Then play the lowest chord tone, then the next two chord tones. That's the first four eighth notes. (On guitar, that's C on 5th string, open 6th E, G on 6th, B on 5th.) Then play the four-note arpeggio ascending from that lowest chord tone, in eighth notes. Then the next inversion ascending from the next-lowest chord tone. Repeat until you reach the top of your instrument's range. Then reverse with descending arpeggios. When you reach the bottom of your range again, play the low root on the final downbeat. The variations on the pattern at the beginning and end of the exercise are to keep the root firmly in your head as you hear what you play.

Now do it with C7, Cm7, Cm7b5, and Cdim7. Now with all twelve roots. That's 60 different arpeggios.

As I plunk through these, I look for efficient and logical places to shift positions. I find that I know the fretboard well enough to navigate through them all, but I end up getting stuck in awkward, avoidable hand positions. So I made a chart.

These are all the easy fingerings for each inversion of each arpeggio. I define easy as not requiring any finger stretches. These are the fingerings I will try to favor when I do the arpeggio exercises above. The numbers refer to the strings used for each note. "6655" in 1st inversion means play the 3 on the 6th string, 5 on the 6th string, 7 on the 5th string, root on the 5th string. Fingerings in parentheses require a slight hand shift, but no stretching.

maj7

• root position: 6554 (6543) 5443 5432 4332 4321 3221 (3322)
• 1st inversion: 6655 6544 5544 5433 4433 4322 3211 2211
• 2nd inversion: 6554 5443 4332 3221
• 3rd inversion: 6655 6654 5544 5543 4433 4432 (3322) 3321 2211

7

• root position: 6554 6544 5443 5433 4332 4322 3221 3211
• 1st inversion: 6655 6554 5544 5443 4433 4332 4322 3322 3221 3211 2211
• 2nd inversion: 6554 5443 4432 4332 3321 3221
• 3rd inversion: 6655 6654 5544 5543 4433 4432 (3322) 3321 3211 2211

m7

• root position: 6655 6654 6544 5544 5543 5433 4433 4432 4322 (3322) 3321 3211 2211
• 1st inversion: 6554 6544 5443 5433 4332 4322 3221 3211
• 2nd inversion: 6655 6554 5544 5443 4433 4332 3322 3221
• 3rd inversion: 6654 5543 4432 3321 3221

m7b5

• root position: 6654 6554 5543 5443 4432 4332 3321 3221
• 1st inversion: 6655 6544 5544 5433 4433 4322 (3322) 3321 3211 2211
• 2nd inversion: 6554 5443 4332 4322 3221 3211
• 3rd inversion: 6655 5544 4433 4432 3322 3321 2211

dim7

• root position: 6655 6554 5544 5443 4433 4432 4332 4322 3322 3321 3221 3211
• inversions: symmetrical, all same as root

I spent the weekend working on this. I used a script I wrote long ago to give me a random root and random arpeggio so I didn't have to systematically go through all 60. The next step is to apply this to real tunes, starting with Autumn Leaves, switching arpeggios in time with each chord change.