Scott Henderson needs almost no introduction — but what he said in this masterclass about arpeggios, voice leading, and the way most guitarists study the neck might genuinely reframe how you practise. This is not a lesson about playing fast. It is a lesson about playing musically, and Scott’s track record with Chick Corea, Tribal Tech, and decades of touring and recording gives every word serious weight.
What you’ll get out of this lesson: Scott takes you through his approach to arpeggios as a voice-leading tool rather than a pattern exercise, shows you why studying the neck vertically is just as important as studying it horizontally, and demonstrates all of this over real jazz repertoire including “Blue in Green.”
Arpeggios are a tool, not a goal
The first thing Scott addresses is the question of arpeggios — because attendees heard him warming up over “Giant Steps” and naturally wanted to know how he approaches them. His answer cuts straight to the point: arpeggios are one tool among many. “When you build a house, you don’t just come with a hammer, you come with all your tools.” He also takes issue with the word itself, because it implies starting at the bottom and going to the top and back down — which is, as he puts it, “not musical and stupid.” The real goal is to use the notes of the arpeggio to make music: to create lines, target chord tones, and connect changes smoothly.
Voice leading: the most important part
For Scott, the crucial skill when using arpeggios over chord changes is voice leading — finding the smoothest connection between the last note of one arpeggio and the first note of the next. He demonstrates this over a set of major seventh chords (using E major 7 to D flat major 7 to D major 7 to B major as an example), showing how he looks for the nearest note in the next arpeggio, often just a half step away. “It’s not really about the arpeggio, it’s more about the voice leading of the arpeggios — and getting to a note via half step that sounds smooth and makes it sound like professional improvisation.” That single idea — move to the closest note in the next chord — is worth an enormous amount of practice time.
“It’s not really about the arpeggio, it’s more about the voice leading of the arpeggios and getting to a note via half step that sounds smooth and makes it sound like professional improvisation, because that’s really what it’s about.”
Studying the neck vertically, not just horizontally
Scott’s most striking technical point is about fretboard geography. Most guitar players — and most guitar teaching — treats the neck horizontally: box shapes, position playing, CAGED patterns. Scott argues this is dangerously limiting, like “improvising on a one and a half octave MIDI keyboard when you’re stuck in a box.” He has done just as much work studying the neck vertically, meaning on a single string, so that he can find any note or any arpeggio shape going straight up one string as easily as he can find it across the neck in a pattern. He demonstrates finding a B flat major arpeggio in all five CAGED positions across the neck, and then equally fluently finding it in a linear, single-string form. Both are necessary.
Applying it: “Blue in Green” and melodic minor
Scott walks through his arpeggio-focused approach on “Blue in Green,” deliberately sticking to one tool at a time so the voice leading logic is audible. He takes the first chord (B flat major 7) and shows all the positions it appears across the neck before moving to the next change. He also introduces a practical rule for altered chords: go up a half step from the altered chord and play melodic minor. For an F altered chord, that means playing F sharp melodic minor. This gives you access to all the altered tensions (flat nine, sharp nine, sharp eleven, flat thirteen) in one fingering without having to think chord-by-chord about which alterations to use. The melodic minor arpeggio he favours adds the ninth on top of the chord tones — root, flat three, five, natural seven, nine.
Practising with purpose
Scott’s approach to practice is refreshingly honest: he does not sit down and pick a subject to drill. He practises music. But when he is working on arpeggios specifically, he goes slowly, identifies the arpeggio in every position on the neck, and then works on the voice leading connections between changes. The CAGED system is the framework he uses to locate all five forms of any arpeggio, and he supplements it with the single-string (vertical) approach. Both together give him complete freedom — he is never stuck in a box, and he can always find the note he is looking for.
Taking it further: Take a ballad with clear, slow-moving changes — “Blue in Green” is ideal precisely because it is slow enough to think while you play. Work through it using only arpeggio tones, and focus entirely on the half-step connections between each chord change. Once that feels comfortable, introduce the melodic minor rule for altered chords. Then, on a separate string, practise finding each arpeggio in a purely vertical (single-string) direction so you break the habit of always defaulting to box positions.
Your homework: Pick a simple chord progression — a B flat blues is a great starting point. Choose one arpeggio (the tonic chord) and find it in all five CAGED positions across the neck, then find it on a single string ascending from the lowest available note. Play it slowly at 60 bpm without a backing track, just to hear the notes and cement their locations. Spend 20 minutes on this every day this week, then next week add the second chord of the progression and work on the voice-leading connection between the two arpeggios.