Seventh chords create the ambience and texture of piano music across many genres, adding extra color and depth than basic major and minor chords can.
This seventh chords chart provides you with 4-part names, common names, and chord symbols for nine types of seventh chords. Keep this printable near your piano for easy reference when encountering chord symbols during music performances.
Major Seventh
Blues musicians frequently employ this chord symbol when crafting music with an accordion or guitar in mind, and rock musicians often employ it when trying to recreate Jimmy Hendrix-style guitar solos. The dissonance between major third and minor seventh is used here to add tension and drama in a piece of music.
Seventh chords can be identified by their chord quality (see Chord Quality chart). You can measure this quality by counting how many half-tones/semitones/piano keys there are between their root note and any interval above it that includes 3rd, 5th or 7th intervals above root tone.
This method provides an effective means of identifying the notes in a seventh chord and assigning it a name (or scale degree) before making your selections. However, this approach can be time consuming; therefore it might be quicker and simpler to memorize the triad quality table provided in the Triads and Scale Chords section instead of this method – saving both time and frustration while helping develop more intuitive understandings about seventh chords as they relate to scale degrees.
Minor Seventh
The minor seventh chord is an invaluable addition to any pianist’s harmonic repertoire, adding depth and emotion to their triad. Commonly found in genres such as Jazz, Blues and R&B as well as pop music progressions.
When playing a minor seventh chord, keep in mind that its seventh is one step below its octave – creating a diminished seventh which can often sound dissonant and should be resolved by moving bass down one step from its root chord.
To determine the name of a minor seventh chord, simply consult a scale note table to locate its root (F). Next, apply this formula below to decide on its correct seventh notes; this process works on any minor scale.
Dominant Seventh
The dominant seventh chord is an increasingly common sight in chord progressions, its sound sometimes more harsh and strident than major and minor chords, giving it a distinct darker sound. Additionally, this chord type can be found across various genres such as modern pop songs.
Play a dominant seventh chord either in root position or any of its inversions, by taking note one and transposing it up one octave – creating the C7 shape shown below.
When we see a dominant seventh with an altered seventh note, that indicates it has been flattened (b7) or you may lower its seventh by one half step to get F7(b5).
Sustained Seventh
A seventh chord symbol with a slash (/) indicates that its construction involves using different bass notes than expected for that type of chord – for instance, G9sus4 chord which combines both ii7 and V7 functions into one chord symbol is an example.
Sus chords provide another means of adding movement to a chord progression, by layering perfect fourths, perfect fifths, and minor sevenths above the root note to create tension that eventually resolves down to the third note of a dominant seventh chord.
Blues music often utilizes these sus chords, while they’re also widely used in funk and jazz music. Notated with either the suffix’sus’ or, like in the Csus4 chord’s case, with the + sign. These chords are known as sus chords because they lack the fixed qualities associated with major or minor chords; instead creating tension and dissonance instead.