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How to Play The Many Graceful Minor 7 Chords

The Min7 chord is a beautiful way to enhance the minor chord. It gives it some extra colour and depth. It sounds kind of contemplative and a bit more sophisticated than your standard minor chord. It’s a graceful chord.

The minor 7th chord is used widely in every style of music and today we’re going to learn how to play it in a different set of varieties and build it from the ground up.

We’re going to look at “open” Minor 7th chords (open strings involved), moveable Min7 chords (no open strings involved) with the root note starting at the Low E (6th string), A-string (5th string) and the D-string (4th string), and finally some more beautiful sounding min7 chords you might not have played before, but are an asset to your chord vocabulary.

MIN7 CHORD CONSTRUCTION – MUSIC THEORY

A minor chord consist of the root (1), flatted third (b3) and fifth (5) notes (1 b3 5) of the major scale. The minor 7th chord (min7) consists of the root (1), flatted third, fifth and flatted seventh notes (1 b3 5 b7) of the major scale. That means only the b7 is added to the minor chord.

For example, if you take the notes of the C major scale = C D E F G A B C
The C minor chord (Cm) consists of the notes: C Eb G (1 b3 5)
The C minor 7 chord (Cm7) consists of the notes: C eb G Bb (1 b3 5 b7)

Another example: A major scale = A B C# D E F# G# A
The Amin chord consists of the notes: A C E (1 b3 5)
The Amin7 chord consists of the notes: A C E G (1 b3 5 b7)

This way you can build or analyze any Min7 chord:

Note: In the chord diagrams above: the black dots above the nut are open strings, and the letters in the dots indicate the note names.

How to Play and Build Maj7 Chords on Guitar

By Klaus Crow 5 Comments

Today we’re going to learn how to play Maj7 chords and how to build them from scratch.

The Major 7th chord is a mesmerising chord which is commonly found in jazz music, but also in pop music and world music it is regularly used to express a beautiful hypnotizing or dream-like sound.

We’re going to look at open Major 7th chords (open strings involved), moveable Maj7 chords (containing no open strings) with the root note located on different strings, starting at the Low E (6th string), A-string (5th string) and the D-string (4th string), and Maj7 bar / barre chords.

First things first, let’s take a look how to build a major 7 chord.

CHORD CONSTRUCTION / ANALYSIS

Major chords consist of the root, 3rd and 5th notes of the major scale (1 3 5). The major 7th chord (Maj7) consists of the root (1), 3rd, 5th and 7th notes of the major scale (1 3 5 7). That means the 7th note of the major scale is added to the major chord.

For example, if you take the notes of the C major scale = C D E F G A B C
The Cmaj7 chord consists of the notes: C E G B (1 3 5 7)

If you take the D major scale = D E F# G A B C# D
The Dmaj7 chord consists of the notes: D F# A C# (1 3 5 7)

This way you can build or analyze any Maj7 chord:

Note: In the chord diagrams above: the black dots above the nut are open strings, and the letters in the dots indicate the note names.

Here are some popular songs that use the major 7 chord:
Old friends by Paul Simon starting with Fmaj7 and Cmaj7, capo on 4th fret.
Something by The Beatles: Amaj7 chord (second chord of the verse)
Maybe tomorrow by Stereophonics: Ebmaj7 chord (first chord of the song) Under the bridge by the Red hot chili peppers: Emaj7 chord (at the end of each verse).

How to Play, Locate, Memorize and Practice Bar Chords

By Klaus Crow 5 Comments

Once you know how to play bar chords, the next step is to learn how to instantly find, recognize and play every bar chord type all over the neck.

For that to happen you first have to locate, memorize and practice the four essential bar chord shapes (E major, E minor, A major and A minor) all over the fretboard in the most effective way.

The E major shape bar chord indicates a barre (first finger) with an E major (shape) chord played with your 2nd, 3rd and 4th finger.
The E minor shape bar chord indicates a barre with an E minor (shape) chord played with your 3rd and 4th finger.
The A major shape bar chord indicates a barre with an A major (shape) chord played with your 2nd, 3rd and 4th finger.
The A minor shape bar chord indicates a barre with an A minor(shape) chord played with your 2nd, 3rd and 4th finger. See diagrams below:

E major shape – E minor shape – A major shape – A minor shape bar chords

Major Bar Chords (E Major shape)
To find and recognize the names for all the E major shape bar chords you only have to memorize the natural notes on the low E-string, so no sharps (#) or flats (b). (See the neck diagram below).

Memorize the frets and their natural notes:
|1st fret = F | 3rd fr = G | 5 fr = A | 7 fr = B | 8 fr = C |10 fr = D |12 fr = E |

These are 7 natural notes and on each fret starts a bar chord with the same name. For example, when you play an E shape bar chord starting on the 3rd fret where the G note is located on the Low E-string, your chord also is called G major. When you play the E shape bar chord on the 8th fret you’re chord is now called a C major chord and so on. See diagrams below (The chord shape moves up and the chord name changes with it).

Move the entire chord shape up to any fret to change keys.

15 Easy Beginner Jazz Guitar Chords

By Klaus Crow 4 Comments

So why do you want to learn jazz chords? Well, jazz chords will spice up and enrich your playing. It doesn’t even matter if you want to play jazz or not, the chords are perfectly suited for/and regularly used in pop, blues, country, flamenco, and other styles of music.

It’s a good collection of chord types and flavors to add to your chord vocabulary, and expand your skill set. You will come across these chords one way or another in the songs you always wanted to learn. So, if you don’t have these chords under your belt yet, now is the time.

If you do want to step up your playing and learn jazz, these chords are a great start and a solid foundation. There are an endless amount of chords used in jazz, but you can already come a long way with just these 15 easy and popular beginner jazz chords.

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