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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.

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7th chords are over the place in every style of music.

There is the dominant 7th chord which is the main ingredient for blues and the major 7th chord which you can find a lot in jazz music, but also chords like the minor 7b5 and diminished 7 are part of the jazz chord vocabulary.

Well to be honest, I don’t think there is a 7th chord that you don’t find in jazz music.

The minor 7 and dominant 7 chords are very common in pop music and also the major 7 is not unusual. Today we’ll discuss the most common types of 7th chords in music.

For each 7th chord you can see four examples (see images below). The first two chords on the left are open chord shapes (containing open strings) and the two chords on the right are moveable chord shapes (containing no open strings). The first moveable chord has the root on the low E-string and the second has the root on the A-string. I’ll explain…

A moveable chord can be moved all across the neck and played in every key. For example if you take the Gmaj7 chord (see image below, third chord from the left). The note on the low E-string is your root note. In this example it’s a G note. If you move the entire chord up a half step (1 fret) it becomes a G#maj7 chord. Your root note has now moved up to the 4th fret low E-string which is a G# note. (So if your root note is a G# note that means your chord is G#maj7. Move the entire chord up another half step your root note becomes an A note so your chord becomes Amaj7.

The same applies for the moveable Cmaj7 chord shape (fourth chord from the left). Here the root note is on the A-string. The root note is on the third fret A-string which is a C note, so it’s a Cmaj7 chord. Move the entire chord up a whole step (2 frets) your root note becomes a D note so your chord becomes Dmaj7.

You can do this with all the other moveable chord shapes as well.

Tips:
– Practice and memorize all the common types of 7th chords shown below.
– Play songs with 7th chords to hear and recognize how they are applied.
– Locate the root of the moveable chord shapes and practice them in different keys.

Okay, it’s time to expand your chord vocabulary!
Continue Reading

How to Play The Many Graceful Minor 7 Chords

MIN7 CHORD CONSTRUCTION – MUSIC THEORY

How to Play The Most Common Types of 7th Chords