Dominant 7 Arpeggios On The Guitar – CAGED Positions and Theory

The dominant 7 arpeggio contains the following:

1 – 3 – 5 – b7

It is the ‘flat 7th’ that gives the dominant 7 arpeggio its distinctive sound. It is a great tool when used over dominant 7 chords and when used with scales such as the mixolydian mode.

Just like any arpeggio or scale that we learn, we want to be able to play the dominant 7 arpeggio in 5 movable positions up and down the guitar fretboard. Let’s look at the 5 dominant 7 shapes using C dominant 7 as the example key:

Dominant 7 Arpeggio Frets Position 1
Dominant 7 Arpeggio Notes Position 1
Dominant 7 Arpeggio Frets Position 2
Dominant 7 Arpeggio Notes Position 2
Dominant 7 Arpeggio Frets Position 7
Dominant 7 Arpeggio Notes Position 7
Dominant 7 Arpeggio Frets Position 4
Dominant 7 Arpeggio Notes Position 4
Dominant 7 Arpeggio Frets Position 5
Dominant 7 Arpeggio Notes Position 5