You know the minMaj7 sound even if you've never named it: it's the chord skulking under every spy theme, the one that sounds like a tuxedo doing something legally questionable. Take a minor triad, sneak the seventh up a half-step from flat to natural, and suddenly your cozy little minor chord has motive, means and opportunity.
This clip is exercise #12: melodic voice-leading arpeggios built from that gloriously shifty minor-major 7 shape, walked through the circle of fourths. Instead of leaping around the neck like a caffeinated squirrel, each arpeggio hands off to the next through the smallest possible move — the notes practically tiptoe. It's an advanced study, but the payoff is a line that sounds composed rather than just correct.
How minMaj7 voice leading actually works
A minor-major 7 arpeggio is just four notes: root, flat third, fifth, and the natural (major) seventh — the star of the show. That major seventh is the "wrong" note that makes it right: it sits one fret below the root and pulls upward like it's late for something. It's the tonic sound of the melodic minor key, which is why it feels both sad and suspiciously elegant at once. If arpeggios themselves are still fuzzy, start with what an arpeggio is before you chase Bond down an alley.
The voice-leading trick is this: when you move around the circle of fourths, don't restart the shape from scratch. Find the note in the next arpeggio that's closest to where your fingers already are, and let that be your anchor. Often that leading tone resolves down by a half-step into a chord tone of the next arpeggio — smooth, inevitable, zero flailing. The concrete takeaway: practise it slowly enough that every connection is the nearest note, not the most familiar shape. That single habit is what turns scale-running into actual melody, and it's the same engine behind ii-V-I voice-leading arpeggios.
Fair warning: once you hear that raised seventh clearly, you'll start slipping it into everything, and one day you'll reharmonise "Happy Birthday" into a Cold War thriller. Full breakdown, PDF and Guitar Pro are on my Patreon — martini optional, shaken encouraged.