Major 7 vs Dominant 7 Chords Video Lecture - Guitar Become a Pro (English)

sometimes in life you can change one
tiny ingredient and end up with
drastically unfair consequences like in
college when I ran out of body soap and
I took a shower with dish soap one time
you think it's soap it's all the same
thing not really true the same applies
for guitar chords so today we're gonna
talk about the difference between
dominant seven chords and major seven
chords we're gonna go over what exactly
the difference is between them some
different chord voicings arpeggio uses
for them and maybe kind of practical
ways that you can use them in
songwriting or just kind of like
displaying in general
so basically major seven cores and down
to seven chords are both different types
of major chords and then built using the
major scale so for a quick example let's
just take the G Major scale okay so the
notes of G major are g a b c d e F sharp
and G and this is gonna be as is why I
like learning a chord scale shapes is
really really important so right you're
about to start now with this root note
and I go middle pinky index middle pinky
index ring thank you I can just say a
combination of these notes to make a
chord now to make a major chord G major
chord we just take the first skip the
second give a third skip the fourth in
the fifth a one three five is a G major
a G a B and a d ok so that G major chord
is gonna be kind of like our home base
for extending and we're gonna extend
this into a major seven chord and a
dominant seven chord now the easiest way
to do that is to kind of keep that
pattern going take a note skipping out
take a note skip a note take a note skip
another note let's skip the six note in
this Kia and grab the seventh note so I
end up with G B D F sharp another
interesting way it's really helpful to
find the seventh note in any key instead
of counting 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 you can always
just count backwards one half-step kogo
so always the 7th note in the key is
always right before G B D F sharp
alright that is how you get a major 7
chord any combination of those 4 notes
will give you AG major 7 we'll talk more
about the chord voicings and minute but
I want to talk about the difference
between that so if we were to spell that
chord out it would just be a 1 3 5 7
that's what a chord spelling is it just
tells you
notes in the major scale that you need
to make that chord now the difference
between a G major 7 and a G dominant 7
as energy down to 7 has a flat 7 okay so
we have a 1 a 3 a 5 and a flat 7 flatten
you just going one half step down
alright so the distance between a root
note and a dominant 7th 7th note is
called a minor 7th way G minor that
interval is what's different about a G
dominant 7th chord so a G major 7 chord
is just straight up major goodness and
my dominant seven chord is a major chord
with a minor interval on top of it
that's why when you play a G dominant
chord or any kind of dominant 7 chord
you get a little bit of attention
because it's kind of like major and
minor battling over the same over the
same area alright whereas a major 7th
chords it's kind of prettier because
you're going through that major scale
having a great time beautiful
ok now different ways we can use this
are gonna be using these as chord
voicings so if you think about the the
main differences being down to 7 has a
flat 7 compared to major 7 of the exact
same four notes except that 7th note is
just flattened wanna then it can really
help you out with chord voicings so
let's take a let's take an easier open
position chord voicing like a major 7
chord voicing it's just open a 2 D with
your middle finger 1 G with your pointer
finger to be with your ring finger and
open here a major 7
okay you might even know you probably
know a major chord voicing and like we
said if we add that seventh note
sometimes you just have to take the note
right before the root note in this case
your ring finger is on an a so we make
that a major seven okay sounds beautiful
now here's where that seven holes we
just talked about if we flatten that ad
just opens up okay so that's just a way
to kind of like major major seven down
to seven in fact that could be kind of
like a really cool way to to kind of use
something melodically to get somewhere
right there is an example a major turn
that into it a major seven turn that
into eight dominant seven and that's
always gonna lead you to a
one cord all right so the interesting
thing about a dominant seven chord is it
takes you somewhere so we're gonna learn
more about that with these chord
voicings but I want to kind of go over
maybe how to use these chord voicings in
different positions okay so this is just
an open voice of a a major seven chord
now it's the same thing let's do it in C
where C is a root I just took the root
note and I'm moving to one two three
frets higher okay now there would be our
new major seven chord this would be like
a C major C major seven I've got 3 a 5 D
for Gia
pinky is on 5 ba ok now I can flatten
that 7 just by lifting it up and making
a barre chord
alright so is that dominant seventh
chord Ian and this is where I want to
talk about maybe in the uses of a
dominant seventh chord as compared to a
major 7th chord in where they exist in
the key because when you just sit on
this dominant seven chord
there's a lot of tension there that's
begging to be resolved on the one chord
okay
so it's useful to talk about where this
chord exists and that all comes back to
the major scale so let's go back to G
major where we started off one two three
four five six seven notes now any of
those notes can become chords the one
four and five become major chords one
two three four five so in the key of G G
major C major and D major are all chords
that you'll see together G C D now if we
were to extend those using just the
notes in that key there's a very
specific formula that will give us
either major seven or nominal seven
chords if you take the seventh note away
from G in the key of G you get a G major
7th at G major turns into a G major 7 a
couple different ways you can do that if
you take the seventh third away from C
and the G Major scale you end up getting
a B and that turns C into a C major
seven so the one in the four chord in
any key can be turned into major seven
chords always without having worry about
going outside of key it'll always sound
pretty good
now that 5 1 2 3 4 5 g a b c d the 5
chord is where the dominant 7 chord
exists if you just started out a D and
you played the notes of G major starting
on V D e f-sharp G a B and C the
distance between D and C is going to be
the same as if you play the D minor
scale that's where that minor 7 comes in
a minor 7 interval up but since we have
a major 3rd there since it's a major
chord because the 5 coordinating key is
always going to be major any major key
excuse me major that 5 chord becomes a
dominant
seven chord which might be a reason to
one of the first dumb seven chords you
see starting out on a guitar it's
usually like a d7 because the key of G
is a very popular key to play songs in
okay so the five chord is gonna be the
most natural place to put that dominant
seven extension onto a and it has a
really powerful kind of duty in that key
because it always leads you back to the
one alright it creates that that tension
that needs to be resolved
okay so again that's why in the key of g
g a b c d d seven will almost always be
followed up by a G major not always but
in lot of cases in the key of c c d e f
g a g7 chord almost always be followed
up by a c so on and so forth you can do
other Aki's like the key of F G a B flat
C a c7 will almost always be followed up
by an F alright so dominant seventh
chords are a really great chord to kind
of start implying some movement getting
some movement in a chord progression
something like that now they don't
always have to be used in the same key
one example that I can use my own
songwriting is that song Parador where I
have like a kind of a run of dominant
seventh chords
[Music]
okay so that's kind of like I'm starting
out for the e7 then I go to a g-sharp
seven two and A seven back to G sharp
seven right and that just kind of sets
up you know just maybe like a
directional thing that's kind of leading
me back to like a home base type deal so
I I personally think that down to seven
chords are a great way to maybe start
implying some movement to kind of get a
little like wake up the path and to like
some song writing it just kind of adds
like a flavor to it that it's very
bluesy dominant seven chords would be
found all over the blues in fact you can
play a whole blues progression just
using dominant seventh chords in fact
it's something that you'll always see in
the Blues is like a one four five type
deal so like a one four five in a would
be like a - a d2 here
[Music]
those are just power chords I could
share those all in a diamond seven
chords okay so even though I'm kind of
using notes outside of one particular
key doing it in a bluesy way to go for a
certain type of sound that has a little
bit of like attention because of that
minor seven rubbing up against a major
chord it just kind of gives it a cool
sound now major seven chords our
personal favorite of mine and I really
they can just be used to make absolutely
anything prettier you can turn any major
chord into a major seven chord and go
outside of a key it you can even turn
why not just get crazy turn minor chords
into major seven chords
and it always just kind of has like the
movement of something kind of like
whimsical mystically beautiful however
you want to use it right so just a
couple different voicings it's good to
know some different voicings and kind of
like how to use them together or stuff
like that now the last thing I want to
do is talk about maybe some arpeggios
that you can use to kind of start
working these intervals into maybe like
a lead type layer so if we go back to a
alright I'm gonna switch to a three note
per string scale type thing because
sometimes that can do more helpful
needed so we have a a major we have one
two three right from here to here to a
five a one three five and maybe like a
slide way I'm going from a a to his
major third 5e to nine I can even grab
that seven on the way out and then I can
grab the five right here one three five
and there's that major seven okay okay
that's kind of like a way to start using
maybe like a major seven type thing I
can continue on into like a higher
octave something like that
again I'm really just taking an A and
then I'm adding that major seven chord
into it so if I wanted to do it again me
like here right here this is 7211 d2 9g
is straight down that's just a major
seven thing now I could alter this to
find out where that flat seven is right
there
[Music]
to start working on it like some kind of
dominant seven idea that you can kind of
take from a root note so major seven I'm
just going from one to a three to a five
to a major seven one three five major
seven down into seven 1 3 5 flat 7 1 3 5
flat 7 a lot of different ways that you
can start kind of incorporating these
and your playing it's all about knowing
the intervals so na kijiye the 1 & 4
become major 7 and the 5 becomes down
into sevens you can always work those
together again in the key of G we have a
progression that's like a 1 G major 7
and 2 a D dominant 7 to a C major 7 1
five for one you can also resolve on a
major seven chord if you want to I think
it sounds pretty good if you try
resolving on a dominant seven chord you
don't have any friends that's just kind
of like you know yeah you got to get
some resolution in there so I just
wanted to take a minute maybe clear up
the difference between those is
something that I didn't get it right
away and if you have any questions hit
me up in the comment section Instagram
Twitter the website and I'll talk to
also you thanks a lot