Seventh chords add both texture and emotion to a song. Like triads, these chords consist of three to five notes that all contain an odd number of members.
These chords are indispensable tools for expanding harmonic vocabulary. Additionally, they’re great at creating drama and suspense in any musical setting.
Major Seventh
As with triads, the quality of a seventh chord depends on its interval relationships between its notes. By creating four-note seventh chords using major thirds, perfect fifths, and major sevenths from any scale to form its C major seventh chord (C E G B), for instance.
These chords are often employed as tonics and provide a more romantic sound than dissonant dominant seventh chords. You’ll hear examples like these in many popular songs such as Chicago’s Color My World opening credits.
Add a seventh, following the same scale formula, and it becomes D natural as its next note on the snowman. Its distance from its root will be measured as a minor third; giving this chord an entirely unique sound from that of major seventh chords and creating tension within it by taking away from its home key; hence its designation as tension-type seventh chords.
Minor Seventh
The minor seventh chord can add an intense level of tension to any piece of music, and is especially effective as part of a cadence ending to make it sound stronger.
For a minor seventh chord, start by drawing out the root note of a triad on a staff. Add any accidentals from your key signature that pertain to triads in this key signature that apply.
Locate the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th notes of your scale that you are using to construct a chord. Referring to an interval table, determine how many half-tones/semisonnes exist between each note and its root chord root – for instance when creating a minor seventh on A natural minor scale it would consist of C-Eb-Gb-Bbb (B double flat) This chord quality is known as minor seventeth – usually without fifth but occasionally also including it if desired.
Dominant Seventh
The dominant seventh chord is an essential element in blues music and many rock songs, from Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” featuring G7 and B7 chords to Carl Perkins’ 1956 hit, “Blue Suede Shoes,” where two E7 and one D7 chords create an infectious danceable beat.
Dominant seventh chords often feature a diminished fifth (or tritone), creating tension when clashing with notes in the tonic chord. Therefore, practicing these types of chords will expand your musical vocabulary so you can utilize them when writing music of your own.
Although dominant seventh chords may seem intimidating at first glance, their notation makes them easier than diminished ones to play on your instrument. To create one of these chords easily and finger efficiently is simple: take the minor 7th chord and adjust its fifth note by flattening it by half-step – that is all it takes! You now have yourself a dominant seventh chord consisting of root note, major 3rd, minor 5th with flattened seventh above.
Half-Diminished Seventh
The half-diminished seventh chord is a four-note chord composed of a root note, minor third note, diminished fifth note and minor seventh. This structure follows a pattern of intervals; minor thirds and major thirds alternate in creating this four-note structure.
A fully diminished seventh chord features a less dissonant sound than its fully diminished cousin, yet it still creates tension when used as a dominant chord at the end of a progression. A fully diminished seventh chord’s distinctive sound and dissonant tones make it suitable for use as a harmonious composition element or tension-creator in harmony.
As an additional function, it can also serve as a leading-tone diminished seventh chord, acting to replace dominant chord (V) at points of cadential motion and providing an alternative subdominant chord in dominant scale modes such as Dominant scale mode – often notated m75 in lead sheets and music theory books.