Jazz Trumpet Licks

I know this arpeggio exercise doesn’t look like much. But if you practice it enough and get it down in 12 keys both up and down the augmented triad, it will help you develop your use of the augmented triad within in your own improvised Jazz solos. This post falls within the whole tone category because augmented triads are part of the whole tone scale.

You’ll be able to play the augmented triad starting on any note within your Jazz solo. As we all know, augmented triads sound great and make good use of leading your solo into the next chord change.

Here is a sound sample/demonstration on trumpet:

How to work on this exercise to learn it in 12 keys:

As you can see in the above example, you simply start on the raised 5th of whatever triad you are starting on. It doesn’t matter which note you start on, because you’ll want to get used to starting off the exercise on different notes to develop your overall technique. If you look closely, there are only 4 augmented arpeggios you are working on. They just start on different notes as you go through the exercise.

From there, you’ll see that the exercise simply alternates up and down in half steps. You can change it up a little bit and do whole steps if you get tired of half steps, it’s entirely up to you.

If you decide to learn the exercise in half steps like I prefer, then all you have to do is go up a half step from G# to A and do the same exercise up a half step all over again. Now you’ll hit all 12 keys and have alternated both up and down for every key.

Now when you take your next Jazz solo, or play your next Aebersold, you’ll want to attempt to bust an augmented arpeggio out somewhere. Preferably over a V7 chord go to a I chord. It works in as many places as your imagination can conjure up.