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

if you've ever wondered where a minor 7
chords come from they come from here
deep in here if you've ever wondered how
to make minor 7 chords and where to use
them you have come to the right place
because today it's all about minor 7 now
two of the probably most common minor 7
chords you'll ever see our a minor being
turned into an a minor 7 I just lift in
your ring finger up or a minor being
turned into an E minor 7 so you might
think that minor 7 means you just kind
of take something away from a chord but
no that is not true we're actually
adding something and the definition is
we are adding the seventh note of the
minor scale to a minor chord so what I
mean by that and that's what I'm going
to use an example is going to be the key
or the scale of a minor right if you
don't know how to come about the scale
of a minor there is a link to a video in
the description the navy should wash
first but we're going to start right
here on the fifth fret of the e-string
now the shape to make a minor is this
five seven eight five seven eight five
seven
now the notes there are gonna be a b c d
e f g and a it's not necessary that you
know the names of the notes helps a lot
but we're going to number them so
instead of just ABCD efg a it's gonna be
one two three four five six seven eight
that means we can use these same rules
and techniques and everything on any
single note doesn't have to be a it
could be a G one two three four five six
seven eight those are going to be
different notes but all the same stuff
is going to apply so to make a minor
chord first of all we take the a we take
the third note in the scale which is a
see an AC we're going to take the fifth
note one two three four five there's an
e with a C and E now we're gonna add the
seventh note in this case ABC
seven is G so a/c G in fact before I do
the shape secession just look at this as
an arpeggio we can always replace an a
minor chord with an a minor arpeggio and
another a so AC any combination of those
four notes is going to give you an a
minor 7 chord so let's learn some
different voicings set on different
strings now again here's the most common
one right here an a minor chord with an
open g string now that's great for a
minor but what if we wanted to make a B
minor you can't really just move it down
two frets like this kind of a cool chord
not technically B minor we would need to
take the open notes with us so we're
open would be on G and a and this shape
to move it down to a B you'd have to
root here right here so this shape might
be really familiar with you for like a B
minor B minor sub C minor C minor so the
root known is going to be on the a
string in this particular voice now
now another really good one is if you
root it on the e-string
so the fifth fret on the e-string is an
a now you may be used to a bar chord
like this without your middle finger
that say a minor bar what you can do is
you just pop your pinkie up which is
essentially when you have that E minor B
minor 7 so another voicing here five
seven five five five five now that can
be kind of difficult you know it depends
on the action of your guitar and stuff
it could be kind of hard to hold down
all the stones so another really good
one is this right here essentially the
same thing but we're just kind of
cutting out the a string so I have five
e I'm skipping the a string and you
notice if I play like this with my
middle finger my middle finger is
naturally resting and muting the a
string so I can hear it cuz if it were
to hold it down
that's what song that's not a minor 17
that we don't want to be there so right
here I'm getting five skipping the a
string munity a string five five so you
got to be like a little root chord thing
with this you're like as a minor seven
to a sharp or B flat minor seven B so
another good voicing right here if we
ever wanted to root it on the D string a
third voicing for a minor seven we would
just find this a we get octave down one
two three one two three four five six
seven eight and written right here with
an A and we're gonna make a power chord
we're gonna make it with our pinky and
then get these two
pretty cool voicing right here so I've
got seven d9g eight and eight I'm eating
so we got three voicing so far we have
an open a string root voicing or same
thing in each string root voicing and
then we have a D string okay uh and
again we have an arpeggio that goes with
this so we can replace any time there's
an a minor we can replace it with ponies
other voices and the arpeggio is as here
one three five seven an octave if we
wanted to go across two octaves of this
it's really easy the second active you
so the frets on the strings are going to
be five eight seven five seven five five
eight five but the shape is more
important than friends because if we
wanted to root it on a different one or
do a like a D take a tenth fret we could
just do the same shape okay and these
can replace chords now now we know how
to make a minor seven when do you use a
minor seven chord or shape and the
beauty of minor seven chord is no matter
what key you're in if it's a minor chord
it can be turned in to a minor seven
chord now the formula would be like in
any key right like say you're in the key
of C major there's seven notes c d e f g
a b whatever the first fourth and fifth
notes in that key become major chords
the second third and six chords become
minor chords if that just blew your mind
you don't know what that means there's
another link in the description on the
basic music theory and how to use the
notes in a scale to make chords but if
you understand the second third and six
chords or notes in a scale become minor
chords then turning them into minor
seven chords is just one note extending
beyond that so let's just take the key
of C for example we have seven notes c d
e f g a b on agar bc
no mercy now the second note in the key
of C is a D the third note is e for FS g
six note is a so there are three minor
chords in the key of C a minor 6 e minor
being a 3 and D minor being the two now
I'm sure you probably already knows or
is a minor minor now within the rules of
music theory any of those if you added
the next the 7th number from that first
number in the key would give you a minor
7 chord so any time you see a minor
chord you can replace it with the minor
7th chord arpeggio
for example let's use some of the shapes
of everywhere so we've got a minors open
a minor let's replace that with this so
it's instead of going
that was a a minor E minor D minor a
minor progression we could replace that
with this a minor instead of going to
this e minor we could find the EMH to
the seventh fret so we've got a minor
that back to me now if you notice I just
replace the whole chord with a little
arpeggio run I didn't even do anything
fancy just went up one three five seven
octave and back so instead of a and
we've got a minor seven back to arpeggio
there you go minor seven chord shapes
use them abuse them do it everyone there
it is