Major 7 Chords
The first chord that we’re going to do in the series is a Major chord and there’s a difference between this and the Major chord is that like I said before, this has one extra note. It is the 7th degree. If we’re dealing with the key of C, we will be playing 1, 3, 5, and 7 instead of just 1, 3 and 5. And that is what’s called a Major 7 chord.
That is down here near the A position, so it’s near A. Your index finger is going to go on the 1st fret on the 3rd string over. Your middle finger is going on the 4th string on the 2nd fret. Your ring finger goes in the 2nd string on the 2nd fret. This is all of them. You can go ahead and hit them all. That is really mellow kind of sounding chord. This is also swappable with A Major chord. If you wanted something to contrast this against, you can do with a Major, A Major, A7 and then A Major 7 or even a better or yet it would be A, A Major 7 then A7, you just lift this back finger here. See that’s sort of a descending note.
You can use this chord in place of Major chords. Not in all places but in most places you can. Go ahead for now. Just use them anywhere you want. But, eventually you’ll find that there are some places such as a 5th position when you’re doing progressions. That’s called the 5th position where there has to be a 7th chord in order for it to work. But right now, go ahead and use it in any way you want as far as where you would normally see a Major chord.
This next chord is B Major 7. And we’re going to use what we originally use from A Major 7 which is down here. We’re going to use the concept of moving it up two frets like we’ve been doing. A is here and then we’ve got A#, right? And then B is going to be the next fret up. Having said that, let’s get started. We’ve holding down this three that are normally A Major 7 down here. We scoot them up 2 frets. Now we’re going to substitute these fingers for three other fingers instead.
Now we’re going to substitute those fingers in for a middle finger. So, per the diagram, your middle finger is on the 3rd string on the 3rd fret. Your ring finger is on the 4th string on the 4th fret. Your pinky finger, your small finger is on the 2nd string on the 4th fret. Then you got this finger back here on the 5th string on the 2nd fret. You’re just going to play the middle four strings. You’re not going to play this string over here. You’re not going to play down over here. We’re just going to play the middle four strings. So, let’s try that. Middle four strings, here we go. It’s all we need.
In fact, it’s good that new chords like this to sort of distill them down to their essence and know which one this is. This would be the 1. This would be the 7. This would be the 5. This would be the 3 and so on and know where these notes are because we can manipulate any of these notes in this chord at any time and get a different chord at it which is pretty cool.
There’s B Major 7. Swap it out, it would B Major. Try with B7. See you in the next chord.
This next chord is C Major 7. This is fairly easy. It’s very easy actually. For Jazz chords or at least the version that I’m going to show you is going to be really easy. I heard someone simpler than that. We’re going to go back to basics. The base chord, remember the C base chord. Let’s go back and do that. Everybody remembers that. {eople that are little farther behind, let’s give them a little more time to catch up.
What we’re going to do is lift up your index finger. That’s it. And you’re playing the C Major 7. This chord can be swap up for Major chords, the 7 chords. Of course, you know discerningly when listening to it. Sounds good. It is good. Just go in there and make sure all the strings are coming out and you push some really hard. That‘s not a really hard one. Per the diagram just give it shot see if you can do it and you can put it together with a C Major and check out the contrast and see how the two complement each other. See you in the next chord.
The next chord we’re going to do is called D Major 7 and D Major 7 is downward D is. If you remember D Major from the first fundamental series, the base chords, D was down here like this. D Major 7 is just these three things held down by this one finger. The bottom string here just like with the D is off limits. You’re not going to hit that but you’re going to hit everything else. Just go in there. Make sure all the strings are coming out clear. Adjust your hand position, just kidding. Just hold down one string so it shouldn’t be that bad. If you do need to adjust your hand position, go adjust it around a little bit. Some people like to sort of come in like this, some coming from the back or whatever. At any right, you can do it any way you want. They’re all fun. See you in the next chord.
This next chord is E Major 7 and it is in the same area as E Major down at the bottom. The 1st fret that it. And what we’re going to do is, you’re going to put your index finger on the 4th string on the 1st fret. You’re going to put your middle on 3rd string on the 1st fret and you’re going to put your ring finger on the 5th string on the 2nd fret. This is an all of them chord. There’s no restrictions. Go and hit them all. That’s E Major 7.
Contrast that with E and back to E Major 7, E7. You can kind of sort of come up with a line based on those three forms – E Major 7, E7 and just old plain E. See you in the next chord.
This is F Major 7. But before we do Major 7, all of those who have been waiting around for the F7 chord, you get your time now.
The F7 chord is going to be here. It’s going to start up here. We’re not going to be doing it down here with the rest of the base chords in the beginners video. It’s going to be up around here. That’s what I kind of what I wanted to save. We’re kind of doing the same thing with the Major 7 form that we’re doing here. We kind of be doing the same with the 7 form that I’m going to show you.
If you remember the B Major 7 form, it was like this. Let’s go back and look at that one more time. What we’re going to do is we’re going to use the B Major 7 form. If you haven’t downloaded the chords sheets, please do so. It helps a lot. What we’re going to do is take all of these notes and move them in this direction down. So, one set adjacent strings. Move them over and then move them one fret up. Now when you do that, that’s an F7 chord.
From those movements and so on, don’t try to put too much together, right now. That’s just a little trick to get you on the right place so you can get the chord. What’s cool is that we can do the same thing when we go - this is F7. If you are with the piano, F# is a half step above, just slide this up here. That’s an F#7. And then slide it up one half step again, now we’re on G. So, that’s G7. Slide it up again, G#7. Slide it up again, A7 which is the same as RA7. Same notes, different tones, different voicing, different sounds but the same stuff. There’s F7. Give it a shot. Make sure all the strings are coming out, so on. Let me know what happens.
F Major 7 is related or kind of looks like the F chord that we were doing in the fundamental series of the Major F. But we held down both of these up here and then these two here like this. There was another one that we had too going over here as well. This time we’re just going to ladder it to about here. We’re also not going to have to worry about holding down both of these bottom ones. We’re going to arch this up, so it’s just holding down the 2nd string in the 1st fret only. The 1st string, first fret. The 1st sting here is open and then it just stairs steps down. This is F Major 7. And there’s F Major 7. Just make sure all the strings are coming out. You’re pushing hard. Push on the tips of your fingers only. Move your hands around to get different positions and find the one that’s best for you. And go from there. Because everyone’s hands are built differently. There are some predispositions that prevent them from doing certain things. So, if you have one of those predispositions, don’t feel bad. I told everybody else and we all try our best to do what we can. See you in the next chord.
This next chord is G Major 7. Per the diagram, you’ll see that you’re going to put your index finger down here. The same place it was when you were doing the G Minor chord. You’re going to put your middle finger up on the 2nd string on the 3rd fret. Your ring finger is going to be here on the 4th string on the 4th fret and you got the 3rd string on the 4th fret with your little finger. Just like the G Minor chord, this chord per the diagram too, has a mute string in the midst of the notes. You got to have just right go over that and ignore it. It’s no big deal. It takes a little practice. Just remember, you don’t want this A string to be coming out. You just want to sound like that. So, when you right go over it, that’s all you should hear. The top string E, should be muted out with the skin on the back of this finger here. That’s a G Major 7. It is really is here on the 3rd fret. Contrast it with G. They’re both very close cousins. Remember, this is just an extension of the regular G, the traditional G.
Thanks for watching the Major 7 series. Minor 7 series is coming up next. Stay tuned!
That is down here near the A position, so it’s near A. Your index finger is going to go on the 1st fret on the 3rd string over. Your middle finger is going on the 4th string on the 2nd fret. Your ring finger goes in the 2nd string on the 2nd fret. This is all of them. You can go ahead and hit them all. That is really mellow kind of sounding chord. This is also swappable with A Major chord. If you wanted something to contrast this against, you can do with a Major, A Major, A7 and then A Major 7 or even a better or yet it would be A, A Major 7 then A7, you just lift this back finger here. See that’s sort of a descending note.
You can use this chord in place of Major chords. Not in all places but in most places you can. Go ahead for now. Just use them anywhere you want. But, eventually you’ll find that there are some places such as a 5th position when you’re doing progressions. That’s called the 5th position where there has to be a 7th chord in order for it to work. But right now, go ahead and use it in any way you want as far as where you would normally see a Major chord.
This next chord is B Major 7. And we’re going to use what we originally use from A Major 7 which is down here. We’re going to use the concept of moving it up two frets like we’ve been doing. A is here and then we’ve got A#, right? And then B is going to be the next fret up. Having said that, let’s get started. We’ve holding down this three that are normally A Major 7 down here. We scoot them up 2 frets. Now we’re going to substitute these fingers for three other fingers instead.
Now we’re going to substitute those fingers in for a middle finger. So, per the diagram, your middle finger is on the 3rd string on the 3rd fret. Your ring finger is on the 4th string on the 4th fret. Your pinky finger, your small finger is on the 2nd string on the 4th fret. Then you got this finger back here on the 5th string on the 2nd fret. You’re just going to play the middle four strings. You’re not going to play this string over here. You’re not going to play down over here. We’re just going to play the middle four strings. So, let’s try that. Middle four strings, here we go. It’s all we need.
In fact, it’s good that new chords like this to sort of distill them down to their essence and know which one this is. This would be the 1. This would be the 7. This would be the 5. This would be the 3 and so on and know where these notes are because we can manipulate any of these notes in this chord at any time and get a different chord at it which is pretty cool.
There’s B Major 7. Swap it out, it would B Major. Try with B7. See you in the next chord.
This next chord is C Major 7. This is fairly easy. It’s very easy actually. For Jazz chords or at least the version that I’m going to show you is going to be really easy. I heard someone simpler than that. We’re going to go back to basics. The base chord, remember the C base chord. Let’s go back and do that. Everybody remembers that. {eople that are little farther behind, let’s give them a little more time to catch up.
What we’re going to do is lift up your index finger. That’s it. And you’re playing the C Major 7. This chord can be swap up for Major chords, the 7 chords. Of course, you know discerningly when listening to it. Sounds good. It is good. Just go in there and make sure all the strings are coming out and you push some really hard. That‘s not a really hard one. Per the diagram just give it shot see if you can do it and you can put it together with a C Major and check out the contrast and see how the two complement each other. See you in the next chord.
The next chord we’re going to do is called D Major 7 and D Major 7 is downward D is. If you remember D Major from the first fundamental series, the base chords, D was down here like this. D Major 7 is just these three things held down by this one finger. The bottom string here just like with the D is off limits. You’re not going to hit that but you’re going to hit everything else. Just go in there. Make sure all the strings are coming out clear. Adjust your hand position, just kidding. Just hold down one string so it shouldn’t be that bad. If you do need to adjust your hand position, go adjust it around a little bit. Some people like to sort of come in like this, some coming from the back or whatever. At any right, you can do it any way you want. They’re all fun. See you in the next chord.
This next chord is E Major 7 and it is in the same area as E Major down at the bottom. The 1st fret that it. And what we’re going to do is, you’re going to put your index finger on the 4th string on the 1st fret. You’re going to put your middle on 3rd string on the 1st fret and you’re going to put your ring finger on the 5th string on the 2nd fret. This is an all of them chord. There’s no restrictions. Go and hit them all. That’s E Major 7.
Contrast that with E and back to E Major 7, E7. You can kind of sort of come up with a line based on those three forms – E Major 7, E7 and just old plain E. See you in the next chord.
This is F Major 7. But before we do Major 7, all of those who have been waiting around for the F7 chord, you get your time now.
The F7 chord is going to be here. It’s going to start up here. We’re not going to be doing it down here with the rest of the base chords in the beginners video. It’s going to be up around here. That’s what I kind of what I wanted to save. We’re kind of doing the same thing with the Major 7 form that we’re doing here. We kind of be doing the same with the 7 form that I’m going to show you.
If you remember the B Major 7 form, it was like this. Let’s go back and look at that one more time. What we’re going to do is we’re going to use the B Major 7 form. If you haven’t downloaded the chords sheets, please do so. It helps a lot. What we’re going to do is take all of these notes and move them in this direction down. So, one set adjacent strings. Move them over and then move them one fret up. Now when you do that, that’s an F7 chord.
From those movements and so on, don’t try to put too much together, right now. That’s just a little trick to get you on the right place so you can get the chord. What’s cool is that we can do the same thing when we go - this is F7. If you are with the piano, F# is a half step above, just slide this up here. That’s an F#7. And then slide it up one half step again, now we’re on G. So, that’s G7. Slide it up again, G#7. Slide it up again, A7 which is the same as RA7. Same notes, different tones, different voicing, different sounds but the same stuff. There’s F7. Give it a shot. Make sure all the strings are coming out, so on. Let me know what happens.
F Major 7 is related or kind of looks like the F chord that we were doing in the fundamental series of the Major F. But we held down both of these up here and then these two here like this. There was another one that we had too going over here as well. This time we’re just going to ladder it to about here. We’re also not going to have to worry about holding down both of these bottom ones. We’re going to arch this up, so it’s just holding down the 2nd string in the 1st fret only. The 1st string, first fret. The 1st sting here is open and then it just stairs steps down. This is F Major 7. And there’s F Major 7. Just make sure all the strings are coming out. You’re pushing hard. Push on the tips of your fingers only. Move your hands around to get different positions and find the one that’s best for you. And go from there. Because everyone’s hands are built differently. There are some predispositions that prevent them from doing certain things. So, if you have one of those predispositions, don’t feel bad. I told everybody else and we all try our best to do what we can. See you in the next chord.
This next chord is G Major 7. Per the diagram, you’ll see that you’re going to put your index finger down here. The same place it was when you were doing the G Minor chord. You’re going to put your middle finger up on the 2nd string on the 3rd fret. Your ring finger is going to be here on the 4th string on the 4th fret and you got the 3rd string on the 4th fret with your little finger. Just like the G Minor chord, this chord per the diagram too, has a mute string in the midst of the notes. You got to have just right go over that and ignore it. It’s no big deal. It takes a little practice. Just remember, you don’t want this A string to be coming out. You just want to sound like that. So, when you right go over it, that’s all you should hear. The top string E, should be muted out with the skin on the back of this finger here. That’s a G Major 7. It is really is here on the 3rd fret. Contrast it with G. They’re both very close cousins. Remember, this is just an extension of the regular G, the traditional G.
Thanks for watching the Major 7 series. Minor 7 series is coming up next. Stay tuned!
