7th Guitar Chords - A No Nonsense 3 Step Explanation
Did you ever read something, only to end up more confused than before?
I’m sure you have - I don’t know about you but it drives me crazy…
So, today I was checking up all about 7th Guitar Chords - I’ve been getting more and more into blues lately and I wanted to top up my very basic knowledge about the 3rd most important chords in the guitar world (No.1 if you’re a jazz or blues man!)
But What Did I Find?
Masses and masses of over-theorized confused rambling text…
Although I’m sure you would point out I’m not one for keeping it brief, this drove me crazy - and crikey did I feel sorry for you - the new guitarist - trying to wade through all the blurb so you could get to the bottom of what the heck C7 or D7 actually means…
Well, here’s the simple explanation of a 7th Chord…
- You have 7 Notes on a scale and then an octave
- The major chord is made up of the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the scale
- The 7th chord is made up of the 1st, 3rd, 5th and flattened 7th notes of the scale
What do I mean by flattened?
You find the 7th note of the scale and lower it by one semitone (or fret in guitar speak)
This gives you C7 or D7 or whatever…They are called the dominant 7th chords and they are the most common type of 7th …
There are a few different types of 7th chords but unless you’re chatting away to major blues man you can assume that anytime a 7th chord is mentioned you are talking about the chords above.
As for playing 7th’s, it might be worth you spending a minute learning the 3 chord trick…
