Seventh Chords

This is an overview of seventh chords. They can be difficult to remember and this page is devoted to all the regular seventh chords.

What makes it difficult to remember all the seventh variations is that some 7th chords have flattened 7th interval and others don't. This resource was written as much for myself as for you. A seventh chord is created in general terms from a major, minor, augment, diminished or suspended triad with a seventh above the root.

Major Seventh Chord - ROOT, M3,P5, M7

Dominant Seventh Chord - ROOT, M3, P5, m7

Minor Seventh Chord - ROOT, m3, P5, m7

Half-Diminished Seventh Chord - ROOT, m3, ˚5, m7

Seventh Chord with Flatted 5th - ROOT, M3, ˚5, m7

Seventh Chord with Suspended Fourth - ROOT, P4, P5, m7

What we can see is that the M7 is only used for a Major Seventh Chord and all others listed here use the m7. Without that knowledge it makes it very difficult to explain certain chords to students. I found myself being questioned about a dominant seventh chord having a flattened seventh. It was in my early days of 'hack' teaching and was thrown because I had never bothered to consider the fact.

Anyway, if you need some sort of explanation of why the seventh in a seventh chord is flattened I've got one for you. The m7 is tonally effective because it is a m3 above the P5. That will have to do, otherwise use the comment, 'it's just is now let's practice advanced diminished arpeggios for the rest of the lesson'.