Seventh chords play an essential part in setting the ambiance and texture of piano music across genres, including jazz harmony.
They are known as diatonic seventh chords because they can be constructed using only notes in a given key signature, including major, minor, dominant and half diminished seventh chords.
Dominant Seventh
The dominant seventh chord is one of the most vital types of seventh chords to master. It often appears regularly in classical music and forms an essential element of blues and jazz music, often preceded by its final tonic (I) triad in most major scales.
This chord consists of a major triad with an additional minor seventh chord. It is commonly known as voice leading chord due to its ability to direct harmonic direction through voice leading. Furthermore, tension is created due to dissonant intervals between root and fifth and third and seventh (tritone).
Dominant seventh chords play an essential part in chromatic harmony, where all notes in a chord may be altered by adding sharps or flats. By contrast, diatonic seventh chords based on one major or minor scale cannot be altered without changing all its notes at once.
An altered ninth, usually written out enharmonically for ease of reading, can give a dominant seventh chord an unique sound; often found in jazz contexts (G7sus4) or modern pop and rock songs such as G7sus4. Another possibility is having an augmented seventh – which is increasingly becoming the standard practice these days.
Minor Seventh
Minor seventh chords can be found across most piano music genres from jazz to RnB. Debussy used it in his classic composition “Au Claire De Lune”.
The major seventh chord is an indispensable chord in any pianist’s repertoire and often found in modern day music as well as romantic ballads and soul music.
When playing fast tunes, this chord can add tension and drama. To construct it, stack a major triad on top of a minor seventh chord with its root as the base chord.
As with other seventh chords, this one has an easy formula that’s simple to remember: 1 – 3 – 5 b7 is its simple structure: triads must consist of three notes from a scale’s root position plus an extra seventh interval above it as part of its triad.
The b7 chord can be created simply by flatting off one half note on any seventh chord to reduce its frequency by half note. The resultant major seventh chord sounds identically to what would normally be found as Cmaj7 and can easily replace any major chord in any key.
Major Seventh
If you’re in search of an extended chord that sounds full and rich, then major seventh chords are an ideal choice. Commonly found at the end of classical pieces as well as jazz and modern pop tunes, Maj7 chords offer plenty of potential!
Major seventh chords are created by adding a note which is one major third above the root of a triad. For example, a C major seventh chord consists of four notes from this family – C, E, G and B; you may see this symbolised on a music staff as Cmaj7 or simply C for short.
As with the minor seventh chord, major seven is another widely used chord in many musical genres, particularly jazz and blues music due to its ability to add tension and urgency into songs – an attribute that fits in perfectly with these musical forms.
You’ll often see this chord used on major key progressions utilizing the IV chord, so use these diagrams below as practice exercises or watch Coldplay’s Au Claire De Lune on Skoove to hear how it sounds in context.