Spicing up Major 7ths
The major 7th chord by itself has a rather mellow and warm sound. It's yet
another colorful idea to bring into tunes for fingerstyle players and
singer/song-writers. Although jazz guitarists freely include it in rich chord
progressions, this article is about less complex music where we might linger on
chords for a longer time.
While major 7th chords are pleasant to listen to, they can sound a bit like
elevator music if you're not careful. So in this article we look at how to add an edge to them and tame their fluffiness. First up, what is a major
7th chord ? Normally we associate 7th chords with bluesy sounds like the
familiar open chord D7. For major 7th chords this 7th is raised one fret (or
semi-tone), which completely changes the feel of the chord.
| Chord Name |
1st |
3rd |
5th |
7th |
| D Major |
D |
F# |
A |
|
| D 7 |
D |
F# |
A |
C (dominant 7th) |
| D maj7 |
D |
F# |
A |
C# (major 7th) |
Here are a bunch more major 7th chords in standard tuning to get you
going.
Taking out the Fluff
To my ear, the 3rd and the 7th go together just a little too well in these
chords. In a
previous article,
I wrote about replacing the 3rd in a chord, with the 2nd to create a less
familiar, vague sounding chord. We do this again here to take the edge off these
major 7th chords. Consider this odd open D chord shape:
| Chord Name |
1st |
2nd |
3rd |
5th |
7th |
| D maj7, sus2 |
D |
E |
|
A |
C# (major 7th) |
It's difficult to define the sound of this chord, and incidentally it sounds
great on a 12 string. The high octave D coupled on the bass string chimes
against the C# on the B string. For fingerstyle players it's an interesting
place to start in building a theme, with the obvious hammer-on from the C# to
the D in the above example. For singer/guitarists, these chords can help do
something unusual and get away from the chords commonly used for strumming.
Here's some more chord shapes with this Maj7, Sus2 idea:
Alternative Bass Notes
Another interesting way to use major 7th chords is to take a fragment of the
chord and combine it with a different bass note. These "alternative bass" chords
are notated as Chord / Bass, where a new bass note has replaced the original
root note. Often this notation gives very simple names to chords which would
otherwise be too difficult to name. Also, the notation better reflects what the
chord is actually about.
The altered bass note can be moved around while the top of the chord remains
the same. This opens up ideas for tunes where the bass carries the melody for a
period of time. Here are some examples of these chords. An interesting example
below is the Asus2/G# chord. On the surface it is not a Maj7th chord, but if you
consider that the G# bass note is the major 7th against the Asus2, these is a
connection there. The E/F# example is the same thing if the A bass note is not
muted. I just prefer it without the A.
Well, that's about all I have to say about major 7ths for now. They work
particularly well in tunings like DADGAD and CGCGCD, have fun hunting for them.
Back to the scrapbook page...
|
.png)
