How to Play 7th Chords on Guitar Video Lecture - The Ultimate Guitar Course

seven chords in my opinion one of the
most incorrectly used chords out there
it seems to me that a lot of times I
hear them as transitional segues and
really bad sitcoms
or in the music that they play a while
they describe the sound effects and
pharmaceutical drug commercials there's
so much more than that
and I want to talk about what goes
behind a 7 chord and how to make them in
different ways now when you see a 7
chord like a g7 or an a7 it's actually
shorthand for G dominant 7 which is
different than G major 7 or G minor 7
anything like that so I want to talk
about why it's so dominant it's still
dominant about a dominant 7 chord so if
you have a G let's take the easiest one
to play is G this is the first fret I'm
a high E string you can play the bottom
four strings like that or you can kind
of make our traditional G and then
switch it here now what's happening is
we're just altering one note in a G
chord when you're first playing you
might think this is in the key of G but
the thing about it's seven chord or a
dominant seven chord is if you're
playing a g7 musically you cannot be in
the key of G and the reason this is is
because of music theory so if you have a
g7 chord you're actually in the key of C
musically speaking that doesn't mean
that's the only place you can use it but
I'll explain why that is so a G major
chord is a G V and an Inc so if you're
in the key of G you'd have a G a B C D F
sharp G those are your notes and what a
seven chord any kind of seven chord is
doing is taking the first third fifth
and seventh notes of that key and
combining so if you're in the key of G
you took the first note is G the second
note would be the second on the chord so
the one three the fifth note is a D and
the seventh note would be an f-sharp now
if you combined all those notes together
you would get a G major 7 but what a
dominant seven is is you flatten the
seventh note so instead of having an
f-sharp in there
I haven't path so G major 7
which would be in the key of G or G down
into seven g7 as very signature sound
major 707 major major 7 o da Minnesota
so in different keys the notes will line
up to give you that ass in a different
key so let's go to the key of C real
quick which the notes are C now for you
to take C's chord we'd have a C and E
and a G and then if we add the seventh
note we'll have a beer which would give
us AC major stamina or a couple
different voicings now if we do the same
thing with G we start on G's note which
in the key of C G is a fifth note okay
so if we start at five and the key of C
you will start with G note G is going to
have a G if you skip a note you'll have
a B and C have another one's a D it's a
G B D that makes a G major so G major is
actually the fifth chord in the key of C
now if we were to add the next note in
the key of C to G the seventh note from
G with these same numbers you would have
an F now remember when you did it in the
key of G we had enough sharp now we have
an F so if we play those notes together
that's how you achieve a dominant seven
chord so in any key the fifth note in
that key is going to be where the
dominant seven chord
resides so it's a good thing to kind of
at least be able to count off musically
in any key or and where that note is and
then you can actually use it in more
creative ways if you want to use it as a
five use it as a five traditionally use
it as a one you can kind of like
actually break these rules once you know
them and it makes more sense when you
break them so for example I'm going to
play the notes in the key of C starving
so G a B C F naught F so back to G now
scale-wise is actually different motors
called the mixolydian so for you to play
those notes in order and arpeggio of a V
G B D F okay and knowing this we can
start making different shapes and that's
why we're going to talk about some
different voicings of a dominant seven
so it's not always the same now the most
traditional one I usually see Barre
chord wise is like this so it's just
really taking a major Barre chord and
then removing your pinky what that's
doing is it's freeing up there's no
playing this note which is we just saw
was one two three four five six seven
but dominant seven otherwise known as
the flat seven sometimes you'll hear all
like G with a flat seven is a g7 which
is true but a different voice and you
can do this kind of cool that you see in
like cool jazz songs and wherever is
this one right here now I'm playing the
G I'm actually skipping the a string I'm
not gonna hear it I'm going right to
that seven so there's a gene down to
seven or G flat seven then I'm adding B
which is really the third of G octave up
I'm just playing three notes not so what
I have is I have a G and B so what's
happening is the five in this chord
you'll notice there's no D for most
Jesus are Jesus supposed to have a D in
it to make it a major chord or minor
chord or whatever but we're implying the
D in this instance so it still sounds
most of the way there so it still counts
as a g7 now these are movable shapes so
this G sharp seven
7:00 a.m. to 7:00 a lot of people play a
seven like this so these are all
different voicings of what we can do
here now again the easiest one to do is
a g7 like this you just hold this down
now if you think of this as a movable
shape so we wanted to play G sharp seven
let's move it up a frat and just bar the
other ones here so you can think of this
as being the seven that you need to add
to a chord so what I mean by that is
like okay here's a regular if you think
of your root note this is a G G major if
you think of your root note being right
here and backing it off two frets it'll
always give you the flat seven of any
key so if you're looking for a seven
chord you can track the root note
they're looking for like let's say I'm
looking for a c7 I know that the eighth
right here is a C I can back it up
that'll give me C's flat seven and I can
just borrow it like I would be here but
the frets doing
you
so it's a pretty easy chord voicing just
kinda have to hold down a few chords
it's kind of like a mini bar chord I
guess that you can use anywhere so we've
got a couple different voicings we've
got this new in here you got this one so
you can octave up and then we'll do
we'll do another one which is gonna be
if you're rooting on the a string so as
I should go all the way down 10th fret
on the a string there's another G right
if we have a regular major Barre work
this G major
we got to turn this note into this is
that seven again all right so we can do
that and actually he was a barre chord
like this what you've you're playing
acoustic air especially that can kind of
put some pressure on your hand so maybe
you want to make this easier let's
assume like this and again we can imply
using a three note chord we're implying
that fourth note making that a seven
chord again these are all movable shapes
now because there's no open strings so
now we can move this all over the place
so knowing music theory and knowing how
to come about a seven will help you make
any chord in any spot on the guitar that
you want and the last thing so what's so
dominant about a down in a 7th chord
it's kind of a weird name something I
thought for a while to you now the
reason it's called a dominant 7 is
because it occurs like we talked about
earlier on the fifth note in a scale so
again if I'm and cu5 is G right aside
from the one note this is a pull is a
musical pull to the fifth note in any
key that's why in a lot of songs if
there's if is in the key of C it's
probably g chord in there too because
that five chord that fifth note pulls
you musically a lot so it's a very
dominant sound inside of the key I guess
that's the way that I like to think
about it so the reason is called the
dominant seven is because it occurs on
the five in music theory you don't
always have to use it on the five if you
know what I mean by saying that but
that's where musically if it's
best now again knowing all this now you
can make more creative decisions like I
know a lot of blues players treat a
dominant 7 on the 3 chord so again what
that means is if I was in the key of C
my third note is an e so the core would
be e minor 7 chord to be e minor 7 now
some players treat that as if that were
a dominant thing so I'm going outside of
the key but I'm going to play that E as
an e7 e dominant 7 ok so I'm going to
add that to my other chords so I can
have two seven chords and same thing
I'll start with a regular C major
- maybe a minor to e7 and that sounds
fine it sounds kind of like interesting
but that's just one way of creatively
using music theory to make up your own
your own interesting chord progressions
just like that so that was just like a
1/5
three chord progression but that three
is in a traditional 390 minors in ECM so
knowing all these rules can give you an
identity as a player and that'll make
your chord progressions sound
differently and once you know these
things and you can kind of like isolate
how to make a song sound more like your
style of playing so it's really
important down to seven points there you
go