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7th Chords

Hi and welcome to this lecture where we're going to be looking at seventh chords. So previously, we just had a look at the free note triad. So we had the root, the third and the fifth. And now we're actually going to have a look at another third on top of that, which will make our chord 1/7 chord. We do have different types of seventh chords. But the main ones we're going to look at in this lecture are going to be a major seventh, a minor seventh and a dominant seventh. So you remember with the triads, we had the root. So this is C and then a third above that. So this is a major third above which will give us a E and then above that, we have a minor third above this, which will give us a G and with 1/7 all we're doing is adding another third on top of that to give us 1/7 chord. So it really does depend on what type of third above, we can have a major third above or a minor third above. So with the C here, if we have a major third it will give us this chord which is ac major seventh. Bu...

t if we have a minor third above it will give us this chord which is ac dominant seventh. So it's ac major chord with a minor seventh and ac minus seventh will be ac minor cord, which is this one with a, a minus seventh on top. So I'm just going to explain these 3/7 chords quickly, but I'll go into more detail exactly how to work these out. A bit later on. The first chord is a major seventh. So we've got ac major chord here and all we're doing is adding a major seventh and the next one is a minor seventh. So that's with a minor cord with a minor seventh on top. So a minor third above this will give us this minus seventh chord and the next one, it's kind of a strange one. It's a dominant seventh. This only happens for one of the chords in our diatonic chord progression for a major scale. So this is a dominant seventh. So it's basically a, a major chord, but we have a minus seventh on top and this occurs on the fifth chord of the diatonic core progression. So, and see, we count at 512345, this will occur on the G. So if I play a G, now it's a G major chord and if we add the seventh above this, this will give us this note which is a F because it's not an F sharp because we're in the key of C which has a F. So it's F natural. So this actually, if you count here 1234, this is a minor seventh on top of a major chord. So it's kind of a major minor seventh, but an easy way of writing that is just called a dominant seventh in blues though. They do break the rules. They don't stick to this diatonic major scale where you just have one dominant seventh, they have a lot more dominant seventh. That's why blues music sounds a bit more interesting, sounds a little unusual because they do kind of break the rules and they have a lot more dominant seventh. So they might have a number of different dominant sevenths and blues music. So let's just break these down individually now. So let's have a look at a major seventh chord. This can be written a few different ways. It can be written with a match M AJ with 1/7 or even with a triangle which you might get in jazz music. So when there's a triangle there, so ac triangle seven, that will mean it's ac major seventh chord. So there are a few ways to work this out. So we've got the C cord here. So we have ce and G. So it's five and four to work out a major triad. So between the root and the 3rd 1234 between the third and the fifth. And then we actually stack on another major third above this. So just count 512345. So we have this chord. Another way of thinking of it is just a semitone down from the root uh octave above. So we have ac here and the octave above obviously ac semitone down is this note A B and then we stack on the other notes there is our C major seven or another way of thinking of it. It's just the seventh note of the scale. So in C major 1234567, this note here. So we have the route the third, the fifth and the seventh. So it's basically a stack of thirds. So we have a major third, then a minor third, then a major third and that is a major seventh. OK. Let's have a look at the minor seventh. So down here, we have the diatonic core progression for C major scale. So we have C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major, A minor B diminished and C major. So let's just have a look at this chord here, this D minor. So if you want to turn this into ad minus seventh chord, we first of all have the D minor which is DF and A. So that's the triad. And then to add the seventh, we just stack a minor third above this. So we just count up four notes from the a from the 5th, 1234. We give us this note here, which is ac another way of thinking of it is the seventh note in that key. So the seventh note starting on ad will give us ac so or another way of finding the minor seventh is to count two semitones down from an octave above the root. So we have the root here, an octave above this is obviously ad as well. Then two semitones down 12 will give us this note here, which is AC. So this will be written as AD minus seven or DM and a seven. And the next one we're going to look at which is kind of unusual is the dominant seventh. So this is basically a major chord with a minor seventh, but instead of calling it a major minor seven, we just call it a dominant. So if you just see the symbol A seven just by itself, so for example, ac seven, that means we're playing ac dominant seventh. So not ac major seventh, ac dominant seventh if you see the seventh. So let's work this out, let's work out c dominant seventh or C seventh. So we have the C triad which is AC A E and A G and then we add on a minor third above this, which will give us this note here, which is a B flat. So in our scale here of C major, this B flat does not fit. So technically, the dominant seventh chord will only fit on the fifth chord. So in C major, the fifth chord is a G. So we have this note here, which is a G above this, we have a B and above this, we have ad and above this, the note will be an F. So let's just play this on the keyboard. We have the J, we have the B above this, we have the D. So here's our triad G major triad and then we add a minor seventh above this. So we could even add a minor third. So we count up 41234 to give us this F or the other way is we go up on octave from the root and we go down two notes. So 12, this will give us the F or we can just play the seventh note depending on what key we're in. So if we're in C major, but starting on G, the notes will be G ABC DEF. That's the seventh add on the other notes. So remember that only technically works on the fifth chord, of course, in blues music and a lot of jazz and other styles of music, they can kind of mix it up and throw in dominant sevenths where they're technically not meant to be there. It can make it sound a little bit more unusual, but that's kind of the style of the music. But I recommend if this is all new to you, just start with the rules and then later on, you can break the rules and kind of go a bit more crazy, but to start with just think of it this way. So in our diatonic core progression here, CD EFG ABC, let's just add on some seventh notes. So let's just go to the piano roll here. So the c we'll be adding a ab this is a major seven. The second one is a minus seven. So this will add on ac, so we're just going up and stacking up thirds and we're just sticking to the case. So the next one A, this will be ad next one. F. So this will be an F major seven. So we have this E, so it's a semi time between E and F and the one after this G, this is the weird one. This is the dominant seventh. So this is a major chord. We have a minor seven. So this will give us an F and then we have a, which is a minor chord. So above this, we will have a minor third. So this will give us a G. And above this, we have the diminished one which is kind of the weird one. So this will give us an A. So this diminished chord which is kind of this weird one here. So we have kind of a super minor, but above this, we have a major seven. So we have a, a diminished major seven. It's kind of unusual one. This won't really be used very often, but it's there just in case you need to know it. So remember a diminished chord, you're actually adding a major seven on top of that. So it'll fit in the diatonic cord progression. So this will give us this cord kind of an unusual one. It can sound quite nice if you want to add a bit of tension and then going back again to the sea, it will give us a major seven. So a major seven is a really nice sounding chord sounds quite luscious. We do have a little bit of a clash between these two notes here, the B and the C but it's octave apart. So it's not too much of a clash, but it can sound a little moody, a bit mysterious and you get the nice beauty of the major chord, the mix with this kind of semi to movement here of the seventh or the major seventh. So let's add this on as well and let's just have a look on the score editor. So I'm just going back to the score editor and just correcting a couple of those notes there because these are all white notes because we're in C major. That's another way of looking at it just stick to the key. Say for example, we're in a major, the key has a C# F sharp and a G sharp. So all of these cores in the diatonic core progression will have the notes that fit in that key. So that's another way of thinking of it. Just think of the notes in key. But yeah, they're the main ones to think about a major seventh. So I see major seventh here. You're just stacking on a major third uh minus seventh. So let's play the D minus seventh. We're stacking on a minor third on top and then a dominant seventh. So it's a major chord and stacking on a minor seventh on top. And that's only technically meant to be played on the fifth chord degree which will make the seventh a dominant seventh. And the rest are either major or minor apart from this one here, which is of course, the diminished chord, which is the seventh. So it's kind of a diminished major seventh. So kind of a weird one, but the three main ones are major seven minus seven and of course, a dominant seventh. So that's just a quick crash course into seventh chords. Of course, we can extend this even more. We can add nines, we can add elevens, we can add 13th, we can extend these chords, we can do a lot more with the chords. But this is just an example of how to use the basics for seventh Chord. So thank you for watching this lecture and I'll see you in the next one.