Take a normal dominant 7 chord, flatten its fifth, and something weird happens: the poor thing loses its sense of direction and gains a personality. That's the dominant 7b5 — 1, 3, b5, b7 — and it sounds like a spy walking into a room he already regrets entering. This is Exercise #16, and it's my little love letter to the most dramatic four notes on the fretboard.
In this 40-second clip I run the dominant 7b5 arpeggio around the circle of fourths, connecting each shape with melodic voice leading so your fingers glide instead of teleport. It's an altered-dominant study for players ready to move past plain major and minor arpeggios into the spicy end of the menu.
How the dominant 7b5 arpeggio actually works
Here's the nerdy party trick: the 7b5 is symmetrical. Spell C7b5 (C E Gb Bb) and F#7b5 (F# A# C E) and you'll find they contain the exact same four notes. That's because the b5 lands the chord squarely inside the whole-tone scale, so it has two roots pulling in opposite directions — which is also why it works so beautifully as a tritone substitute. Enharmonically that b5 is also a #11, so this arpeggio is your gateway drug to altered dominant tension.
The practical takeaway: don't leap between arpeggios, lead between them. When you move a fourth up around the circle, most notes are only a half or whole step from their neighbour in the next chord, so pick the closest voice and slide. Practice it slowly enough that every shift is a decision, not an accident, and you'll internalise both the fingerings and the sound at once.
Warning: play this over a V chord in your next solo and people will assume you finally paid for jazz lessons. If this exercise made your pinky file a complaint, the tab and Guitar Pro file live on my Patreon — where your fifth is always welcome.