Really Learn Guitar - 7th Chords

Guitar Chords Tutorial -
7th Chords Phase I

We learned what a triad is in the Guitar Chords - Triads tutorial. Seventh jazz guitar chords are constructed in the same way that triads are, the only difference being that a fourth note, a seventh, is added to the triad chord which is already made up of a root, a third, and a fifth. See the Major Scales tutorial for a review. Seventh guitar chords may be found in Major form, minor form, diminished, Augmented, minor 7 flat 5 and some other 'altered' forms that we won't get into here.

Major seventh chords consist of a root, third, fifth, and seventh of the Major scale. Other forms of seventh guitar chords are the same but with some minor alterations of the Major scale, as you'll see in the diagram below. We'll refer to these forms as 'Phase I'. Notice the scale degrees below each chord form and how they've been changed from the Major scale to achieve each chord form by adding the seventh.

If you learn to form guitar chords> by thinking of the scale degrees that are involved, it will help you to bypass having to memorize a slew of chord charts. All of the examples below are in the key of C Major. The Roman numerals indicate the fret where the Root note should be for the chords to be in the key of C Major.

Once you learn these chords, slide the patterns intact to another fret and identify the Root. For instance, in our diagram examples, the ROOT C Major 7 chord is played at the 8th (VIII) fret. If you slide the pattern to the 3rd (III) fret, the ROOT will now be an 'A' note, and the chord will be ROOT A Major 7.

See if the notes of the chord are still the same scale degrees, except that they are now in the key of the new Root, 'A' and are the scale degrees for the A Major scale. Take some time looking at this and you'll see what we mean. You'll be amazed. All guitar chord patterns work the same at every fret, except that the chords change to whatever the Root note is. That's why it's important to learn your fretboard notes and scales.

As soon as you learn the Phase I chord forms, you'll be able to advance to the Phase II forms. The Phase II forms demonstrate alternate voicings of these jazz guitar chords that will help you to bring a considerable amount of style to your playing. However, it can't be stressed enough how important it is to your playing to learn the Phase I forms first, so be sure to do that!