Once you are comfortable with major and minor barre chords, it is time to expand your musical vocabulary with seventh chords. There are four types of seventh chords: major, minor, dominant and half-diminished.
Seventh chords provide a distinct sound from basic triads, adding dimension and variety to your music. By expanding your chord vocabulary with sevenths you’ll add depth to your pieces.
Major Seventh
Major seventh chords (commonly referred to as “maj7”) can add depth and richness of sound to your music. Constructed from roots, major thirds, fifths with an added major seventh above the bass note – these chords add dimension and vibrance!
Dominant sevenths tend to have a more “pretty” sound and are frequently found in jazz music, although they can also be found in some rock and pop songs.
Major seventh chords are slightly more challenging to understand than dominant sevenths; therefore, newcomers to seventh chords may want to devote some time learning the various shapes and voicings on your guitar neck to get familiar with this type of chord.
Below are the most frequently encountered major seventh chord voicings for guitar. These chords have movable shapes so that they can be moved up or down the fretboard for different qualities of chords.
Minor Seventh
The minor seventh chord is an exciting variation of the minor chord that adds some extra character and emotion. More melancholy than its counterpart, it can often be found accompanying another minor in songs to soften some of its edges and round out melodies more smoothly.
An easy way to construct a minor seventh chord is to combine it with a major triad and reduce both third and fifth notes by half steps on every string.
Make a minor seventh chord by shifting up or down on the fretboard a few frets on a barre chord shape containing these two notes, such as an A major seventh chord with its root note on the fourth string to become an Bm7 by adding root note to fourth string, for example. Play this version in songs by Patsy Cline such as Crazy, where this version adds extra sadness.
Dominant Seventh
The dominant seventh chord resembles its major seventh counterpart but with one important distinction – it adds a flattened seventh above its root note to form what’s commonly known as half-step flat 7 chord or simply flat 7.
If you know the open C major chord shape, creating a C dominant seventh chord should be straightforward by moving your third finger up to the second fret on G string and strumming only, leaving out low E string when strumming your dominant seventh chords for clean sounding dominant seventh chords.
Dominant seventh chords can be found all across the guitar neck in rock and pop music genres like blues. Dominant seventh chords create tension in songs due to their combination of major (happy) and minor (sad) sounds; The Beatles were one of the first bands to use dominant seventh chords commercially, including their iconic song, “Something.”
Barbed Seventh
Sometimes seventh chords can be altered with either a sharp or flat fifth. These non-tertian chords (meaning they do not contain three major third intervals) include C7#5 and C7b5, as well as minor seventh chords with flat fifths known as barbershop sevenths; these variants of harmony may not be common in equal-temperament music but may appear frequently in blues and barbershop music with just intonation sung over an equal tempered scale.
The four types of seventh chords can be distinguished formally by their triad type and seventh type; their names may also be abbreviated; for instance, major/minor seventh chords are commonly known as maj7 chords; this term can also be abbreviated; an example being in Bacharach and David’s song Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head featuring Cmaj7 as one chord among several such as Bmin7 and C#m7 chords that provide movement and tension to chord progressions; try playing them along to a popular tune while practicing fingerpicking techniques while practicing rhythmic skills with fingerpicking techniques while learning rhythmic fingerpicking skills!