Seventh chords are triads with an added note that forms an interval of a seventh above their root note, and its quality defines their purpose in tonal music.
Starting off your jazz progressions can be improved through chords such as major sevenths or diminished sevenths – these chords add depth and emotion. Let’s begin!
Major Seventh
To play a major seventh chord, simply add an note that’s one half step below the root note of the scale you are working in. For instance, to create a C major seventh (CMaj7) chord you would add B to a C major triad consisting of C, E and G notes.
This form of seventh chords can often be heard in popular songs; for instance, Coldplay’s “A Sky Full of Stars” opens with one, returning back to it throughout.
There are also some less-common seventh chords based on diminished and augmented triads, though they’re rarely used in tonal music. While these chords might not create as much tension as dominant seventh chords, knowing how to construct diminished and augmented seventh chords is still valuable knowledge for your compositions when necessary – visit our article about building diminished and augmented seventh chords for more information!
Minor Seventh
Minor seventh chords, as the name implies, consist of a minor triad and minor seventh. They’re an essential tool in songwriting as they allow for more interesting melodic progressions.
Minor seventh chords are easy to form on any note of the minor scale. Roman numerals used to indicate their quality are identical to those for their associated triads – for instance Bmi7 indicates one built upon G minor notes and featuring a B minor triad.
Certain seventh chords play specific and predicable roles in tonal Western art music. Examples include supertonic seventh and subdominant seventh chords, which often lead to dominant harmonies. Diminished seventh chords can also serve this purpose when prepared as common tone chords with preceding chords and resolved stepwise downwards by step resolution.
Dominant Seventh
Chances are dominant seventh chords have made an appearance in your favorite songs – they’re an essential component of blues music, giving your tracks an irresistibly danceable groove.
The dominant seventh chord consists of four notes spaced by thirds, which can be built upon any scale note. Together they form a major triad with an added interval of a flat seventh above its root (G, for instance).
Diminished seventh chords can also be created by dropping the fifth, creating an unresolved tone and increasing tension and modulations potential. This technique can be useful when modulating between chords or creating tension in modulations processes.
Voicing of chords is of critical importance and can take many different forms. For instance, pianists with smaller hands often play the 3rd inversion of a dominant seventh by leaving out its fifth note altogether, creating G-Bb-C-E chords instead. This practice also makes learning new keys much simpler by enabling users to still create dominant seventh chords using any inversion by skipping its fifth note altogether.
Suspended Seventh
The sus chord (sometimes known as su2, 7sus or sus4) often causes players to bewilder. Its existence can be difficult to explain; its sound alone makes no sense without major or minor third. This may actually be an acoustic issue; our ears have become used to hearing major and minor triads as the endpoints for music pieces; therefore it can be unclear what a suspension should sound like without one.
Traditional Western chord notation uses the sus symbol to signify when a fourth is being substituted for a third; hence the name, “suspended.” When played as counterpoint, its dissonant notes would typically be resolved by sliding to consonant third of subsequent sonority; but we often use suspended sevenths purely for their color and not resolve them in this manner; that makes suspended sevenths an effective way of adding tension into progressions.