Uploaded January 2022 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
We're editing our upcoming interview with the awesome Wim Den Herder, in which he plays this cool little minor pentatonic-sounding arpeggio. Part of the tedious process of transcribing licks is coming up with sensible names for four seconds of video, so you'll have some clue as to what the example contains when you're scrolling through fifty of these in a list. So we're calling this one "Minor Add4 Arpeggio". Why not add11? To me this doesn't sound very "eleveny", it sounds more like a pentatonic lick with some notes omitted. But "Minor Pentatonic Arpeggio" might be confusing. Same thing with the classic Gambale-style major add2 lick. That lick just doesn't sound very "niney" in the sense of "chord plus high extension", so I always call that one an "add2" and not an "add9". But I admit I'm ignorant. What's the rule with naming adds?
We're editing our upcoming interview with the awesome Wim Den Herder, in which he plays this cool little minor pentatonic-sounding arpeggio. Part of the tedious process of transcribing licks is coming up with sensible names for four seconds of video, so you'll have some clue as to what the example contains when you're scrolling through fifty of these in a list. So we're calling this one "Minor Add4 Arpeggio". Why not add11? To me this doesn't sound very "eleveny", it sounds more like a pentatonic lick with some notes omitted. But "Minor Pentatonic Arpeggio" might be confusing. Same thing with the classic Gambale-style major add2 lick. That lick just doesn't sound very "niney" in the sense of "chord plus high extension", so I always call that one an "add2" and not an "add9". But I admit I'm ignorant. What's the rule with naming adds?
