G minor 7 chords don’t sound quite as oppressive than standard minor chords and can even sound quite perky in certain genres; for instance, “I Love Music,” by O’Jays features one.
A chord’s quality is determined by its component notes; for a G minor 7th chord this includes its root note, minor third note, perfect fifth and minor seventh notes.
Scale
G minor is one of seven diatonic scales used in music. Musicians know they’re playing in G minor when the key signature features two flats on its sheet music and when its chords produce a mournful sound as opposed to the more upbeat sounds associated with major chords.
Step one in learning this scale is to identify its notes on a piano keyboard. Each key will be labeled with both its letter name and, if needed, flat or sharp accidentals such as #.
Next, the G minor natural minor scale can be constructed starting from the starting note, or tonic note of G. The steps are then: 1 whole step up to A, 1/2 up to Bb, C full step, D half up then Eb full then F whole steps.
Once we understand our scale, we can move on to building a minor 7th triad chord. This chord type is extremely popular within music, as its distinct sound makes for memorable performances. Musicians should understand this chord type because it forms the basis for many other forms of musical expression.
Minor triads are chords composed of the root, minor third and perfect fifth of any scale. To add sevenths to this chord type, simply move up one note on G minor minor scale’s G note by an octave; this forms the Gm7 chord.
The G Minor 7 chord is one of the basic triads. However, it can be customized further with additional notes to create new flavors and variations of this chord – known as chord extensions because these extra notes add new sounds and feelings to its sounds and texture.
Gm7 chords can be played in various inversions. To choose an inversion that best fits you, referring to the chart below will help determine which inversion to use: in this table i65 refers to G minor 7th chord in its initial inversion while 43 represents its secondary and i2 its third inversions.
Finger Patterns
G minor scale can be used to form various chords. To help you learn them, we have prepared a chord chart and fingerings chart that highlights chord notes on piano keys as well as showing hand position fingerings.
Your first chord to master should be the G minor triad, which consists of three notes from the G minor scale – root, minor (m) third and perfect fifth – including inversion by shifting up one octave or by switching fingering from thumb, index and middle fingers to all four fingers for its root note. To do this successfully.
As your G minor chord playing skills advance, practicing fingering patterns will become essential to playing them quickly and efficiently. Luckily, minor chord fingering patterns are virtually identical to major chord fingering patterns! In general, finger 1 represents your thumb finger while 2 represents index finger and 3 stands for middle finger.
As part of your G minor 7 chord building, other factors need to be considered. One is what type of chord you wish to create: for instance, minor dominant seventh or minor diminished seventh chord? Also important are note intervals. It will help determine how many half-tones (or semitones) should exist between the root note and 3rd, 5th, and 7th chord notes in order to produce optimal chord results.
With this information in hand, it should be easier for you to construct G minor 7 chords. In order to form a minor dominant seventh chord, combine the root note, minor third, minor seventh notes from G minor scale as well as adding minor sixth note by flattening 7th note of scale G minor scale; to construct minor diminished chord add minor sixth as sixth note plus flatten 7th note from scale G minor.
Once you’ve mastered the g minor 7 chord, you can expand into other chords in G minor with Hoffman Academy’s chord progression series. Once you’ve learned some chords in this key, try using them to play some songs!
Chords
The G minor seventh chord may not get much love in music circles, but it still packs a powerful punch and adds texture and dimension to your songs. Composed of four notes – G, Bb, D and F – the Gm7 chord serves as the tonic of the G minor scale and can be played both root position or its inversions (although playing root position may be easier).
Gm7 chords can also be enhanced through augmenting; this involves replacing F with another note (C in this instance) to heighten tension and add drama. This form of augmented 7th chord is one of the most prevalent forms, found across genres from rock to jazz music.
To play an augmented chord, place your index finger across all strings from A string down while your ring finger rests at the second fret of B string and place both fingers onto one string at a time on second fret – then barre chord with two fingers and strum other strings as usual. This Gm7 chord shape is commonly known as Em7 barre chord because its fingers patterns mimic that of Gm triad.
In theory, you could apply this pattern to create any chord from a minor scale. This is possible since all minor chords contain at least three notes from its scale as part of its construction – so each note makes up its own unique triad that forms part of its form.
If you want to gain more knowledge of chords for any key, simply follow this series’ lessons and quickly create beautiful-sounding chords. Each lesson takes one scale note as its starting point and builds its chord with its 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th notes of that scale.
As part of these lessons, to help you remember note intervals used, we’ve put together an interactive piano chart showing all major scale notes and their associated chord qualities. Clicking any chord will reveal its constituent notes as well as any necessary fingerings or finger placement. Alternatively, download a PNG image of this chart for easy offline reference.
Intervals
Intervals can be an unfamiliar element when learning piano chords and can often become confused among new students. This step outlines the note intervals used in G minor 7th chords and their relation to triad chord qualities they’re built from; with each interval quality (diminished, major, perfect or augmented) representing an adjustment in pitch from the major scale notes you learned in step 4. Each change may require flat(b) or sharp(#) accidentals for proper execution.
To determine the type of interval, count the number of note letters from the bottom to top of a chord and check whether its top note belongs to the same major scale as its base note; if so, this indicates a major or perfect interval; otherwise it indicates diminishment or augmentation.
G minor seventh chord contains both a major third and perfect fifth, making it a diatonic chord – meaning all but one note from a major scale are present, except the tonic (first note) or tonality – of its diatonic tone scale is not represented here. A diatonic chord produces a major sound but lacks as much punch as its triadic equivalents.
Therefore, pianists often favor using triads as the foundation of their chord playing. While other chord types may also work, starting from a triad is usually easier for finding good tones and adding further notes as necessary.
To create a G minor seventh chord, first create a G triad. Next, add F as the seventh note – creating the Gm7 chord (also known as movable minor seventh).
One method for playing a G minor seventh chord is inverting the intervals shown above, which will make the chord less dissonant while also decreasing tension and force of its sound.
If you want to gain more insight into the interval structure of a g minor seventh chord, use the links in the table above to access piano diagrams, short names and note positions of interval intervals that make up this chord’s quality and key. This will help provide greater context.