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Easy Beginner Guitar Lessons – My first steps to learning major seventh chords on the guitar
By Mike Hayes | August 21, 2009
The art of playing rhythm guitar is a constant process of
understanding how various combinations of notes effect the
emotional presentation of a song or melody.
Playing music is about storytelling, and since there’s only a few
common themes that songwriters use e.g., new love, lost love,
etc., the more interesting you can make your presentation of these familiar and well worn themes the better!
Essentially, if you understand the craft of chord construction
you can take a very basic chord progression and re-color the
chord sequence, in fact sometimes you only need to change one chord; the result being the audience will feel like they are hearing a brand new song.
The major 7th chord is a great chord to have in your musical
toolbox; it’s primary applications are …
(a) to create a sense of movement without actually having to
progress to another chord …
In this example I’m creating movement in a situation where there
was a static “C” major chord for four bars.
Example 1. static C major chord:
C /// | C /// |C /// | C /// ||
becomes …
Example 2.
C /// | CM7 /// | C /// | CM7 /// ||
By alternating between the C major chord and the C major seventh
chord we have created a sense of movement without actually going
anywhere, like a person “walking in the same spot”.
(b) another important application of the major 7th chord is to
soften the major chord; in the same way as a production manager
might want to soften the stage lighting in a musical theatre
performance.
example 3.
original chord progression:
C /// | F /// | C /// | F /// ||
could be softened by substituting major chords with major 7th
chords.
Example 4.
CM7 /// | FM7 /// | CM7 /// | FM7 /// ||
Important distinctions:
(a) Major seventh chords are written as: CM7 or C major 7th not C7
(b) Dominant 7th chords are written as C7
(c) Minor 7th chords are presented as Cm7
Notice the minor 7th uses a small ‘m’ whereas the major 7th has a
capital ‘M’.
Now it’s time to learn how to create these useful sounds.
Major Seventh formula:
The formula for constructing major seventh chords is: 1-3-5-7
Step 1: Using the notes from the major scale
In the key of C …
C major scale = C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C
Step 2: locate the notes specified in the formula 1-3-5-7
This means we would extract the first, third, fifth and seventh
notes from the scale; therefore our CM7 chord would be spelt like
this: CM7 = C-E-G-B
Here are a few more major seventh chords for you to study.
Key of G
GM7
step 1. G major scale G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G
step 2. extract 1-3-5-7
answer: GM7 = G-B-D-F#
Key of A
AM7
step 1. A major scale A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A
step 2. extract 1-3-5-7
answer: AM7 = A-C#-E-G#
Try playing the progression in example 5 to give your ear a chance to hear how these chord work in a musical situation.
Example 5.
C /// | CM7 /// | C7 /// | F //// | etc.
Notice how each chord takes the listener further into the
progression; George Harrison used this progression in the opening
bars of his song “Something”.
Now it’s over to you, have fun playing your guitar.
And now I’d like to invite you to get free access to my “How To
Remember 1,000 Songs” eCourse. You can download the course for
free at: http://www.guitarcoaching.com
From Mike Hayes – The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar
System
http://www.GuitarCoaching.com
http://AdvancingGuitaristProgram.com
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