No matter the genre of music you’re playing – be it rock, country or folk – seventh chords add depth to your progressions. Here you will learn about different kinds of 7th chords as well as how they should be played on guitar.
All these shapes are movable, meaning you can move them up or down the fretboard to form different chords of similar type. For instance, to play B7 simply move an A shape up two frets.
Open Position
These chord shapes, known as open seventh chords, can be played without needing a barre to hold them. They’re an excellent option for beginning guitarists as they require minimal finger stretching to execute successfully.
Once you know your major and minor guitar triads (consisting of root, third and fifth notes from their respective scales), building them together into 7th chords becomes easy. This gives a more relaxed and resolved sound to the chord which often serves to provide closure within a progression.
Beginner guitarists will likely already know these basic barre chord shapes, which are great for providing chords with more of a solid sound and helping avoid treading on bassist’s toes when playing in funk-inspired styles.
Barre Chords
Mastering barre chords may take more practice, but you will eventually become proficient in switching seamlessly from them to open position chords. A bar chord is played with your index finger “barring” a number of strings on the fretboard (similar to capoing). As you move this shape up or down the neck, its root note changes accordingly – for instance an F barre chord in open position will become an F major chord when moved up the neck.
Finding out how much pressure to apply to the fingerboard in order to produce an incredible-sounding barre chord may require some trial and error; once this becomes second nature it will become just another chord to play.
Major
Addition of the seventh note from a scale adds another dimension of harmony to a triad chord, giving rise to what are commonly known as major seventh (maj7) or dominant seven (dm7) chords.
Maj7 chords can be used in song progressions to build tension before resolving back to an I chord, and can even create a dreamy soundscape.
To create a major seventh chord, combine the flat seventh note from your scale with the root note of any triad to produce C7 or F7 chords. Alternately, these can also be played without fifth notes if preferred for a different feel and to build tension before finally resolving into I chord.
Minor
Minor seventh chords add some vitality and flavor to your progressions, like adding spices to food. They help soften harsh minor chords into something more melancholic sounding.
A dominant seventh chord is composed of the same elements as a major triad – root, third and fifth note – but with an additional seventh note added on top. It’s widely used in blues and jazz music.
There are various kinds of minor seventh chords. Here, we will focus on open position minor seventh chords (also called m7 chords). On this chart you’ll see dots with an “X” that indicate where not to play strings and numbers that indicate frets; two movable m7 chord shapes you can move around on the fretboard are also featured to help develop dominant 7th chords! Both options provide great practice opportunities!
Dominant
Dominant seventh chords are an integral component of jazz and other genres’ II-V-I progressions, yet their use presents greater difficulty for singers than major 7th chords due to not using an open position for singing them.
This chart illustrates four distinct dominant 7th drop 2 voicings on guitar, to play them simply take the third highest note from an open voicing and lower it by one octave.
This chart’s two remaining movable shapes demonstrate how to play minor 7b5 and fully diminished seventh chords, built by stacking minor thirds. Both chords are easy to play and add a whole new layer to your music, providing tension before returning back to their respective roots chords.