Dominant 7th
7Intervals · 1 · 3 · 5 · b7
Tense; wants to resolve down a fifth. Blues and jazz workhorse.
Chord Family
Seventh Chords
Seventh chords add color and tension to a triad by including the seventh note of the scale. The five common types — dominant 7, major 7, minor 7, half-diminished, and diminished 7 — are the harmonic vocabulary of jazz, blues, and gospel.
Qualities
Each variant.
Major 7th
maj7Intervals · 1 · 3 · 5 · 7
Dreamy, sophisticated. Tonic of jazz ballads.
Minor 7th
m7Intervals · 1 · b3 · 5 · b7
Smooth, mellow. The ii in ii-V-I.
Minor-Major 7th
m(maj7)Intervals · 1 · b3 · 5 · 7
Sinister, James Bond-ish. Tonic of harmonic minor.
Diminished 7th
dim7Intervals · 1 · b3 · b5 · bb7
Symmetrical; passes through every key. Used as a dominant substitute.
Half-Diminished 7th (m7♭5)
m7b5Intervals · 1 · b3 · b5 · b7
The ii in a minor ii-V-i.
Find seventh chords for your instrument
Compiled by
Jake Dahn
- guitar
- chord voicings
- music theory
- chord charts
Jake Dahn builds and maintains chords.lol — a one-person project of interactive chord references, printable PDF charts, and music theory laid out plainly. He's a software engineer and a guitar player who got tired of ad-bloated chord sites, so he built the reference he wanted to use. Every diagram, voicing, and article here is written and checked by him, and all of it is free.