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Finding Different 7th Chords in Songs

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All Kinds of 7th Chords!

Good morning. This is Duane. Lately we’ve been talking about 7th chords. We worked through all the different kind of chords, but we got to 7th chords and we found out that there’s many different kinds of 7th chords. Just quickly to review, there’s a Major 7th chord which uses a 7th degree of the scale, and out of that we can make some beautiful runs like that. There’s minor 7th chords which is a minor triad plus the flat 7th degree of the scale, and they are very mellow chords.

 
Then there’s dominant 7th chords. They’re the pregnant kind of chords. They want to move, right, which says there’s all kind of dominant chords. Then there’s half-diminished chords which are like diminished 7th chords but their 7th is different. I don’t want to go into that because we’ve already reviewed it. That’s a diminished 7th chord. That’s a half-diminished 7th chord.

 
What I’d like to do now is just simply play through some song and talk about the different kinds of 7th chords that we would encounter. If we were going to play “Misty” for example, we would start off with a Major 7th chord like that. The next chord we would have is a minor 7th chord, and then we’d have a Major 7th chord. That’s a kind of 7th chord, a dominant 7th chord. It’s got a 9th in it but Major 7th chord, minor 7th chord, minor 7th, dominant 7th, minor 7th, regular 7th, minor 7th. There’s all kinds of 7th chords in “Misty” but how about some other song?

 
Let’s take an old tune such as “Moonglow.” Okay, it starts out with a minor 7th chord. That’s a dominant 7th chord. That’s a minor 7th chord, and that’s a dominant 7th chord. The melody is a 9th but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a dominant 7th chord. Of course, we can color tones in it if we wanted to use a flat 5th. Now, watch this; that’s just a Major chord. That’s a diminished 7th chord, that’s a minor 7th chord, diminished 7th chord, and back to the tonic chord. Let me show you why that’s a diminished 7th chord. Remember, diminished 7th chord is a stack of minor 3rds and that’s exactly what we have there. It’s over B-flat but that doesn’t negate the fact that it’s a diminished 7th chord. That’s a minor 7th chord, diminished 7th chord, and then back to the tonic chord. Back to minor 7th, that’s a regular 7th chord, that’s A-flat 7th by the way. I’m voicing it a little different. I had the 7th on the bottom and the 9th and the 6th up there.

 
I haven’t played this song in a long time but anyway, I can barely reach that now, and then back to tonic, or we could go to G minor 7th chord. Now that’s a dominant 7th chord but I’ve got the suspension in there. The 4th replaced the 3rd, which I’ll resolve there. At the same time, I might go a little color with the flat 5th coming to the 5th, and then back to the minor 7th chord.

 
Now in the bridge, watch this, that’s B-flat 7th. Now it comes down by half-step because it’s all dominant 7th chord, A 7th, A-flat 7th, G 7th. See that? If I just played it in root position, it would go like this. B-flat, A, A-flat, G, but voicing it, you get a little fuller sound, and then when you got there, you probably wouldn’t go directly to the 7th. You’d probably use a suspension and then resolve it to the 7th chord and maybe do a half-step slide like so into the next chord.

 
Okay, well that’s a little exploration of all the 7th chords that you’re likely to run into in pop music, well any kind of music for that matter, whether you’re talking about classical music or jazz or gospel or whatever, because a chord is a chord is a chord is a chord no matter what the genre.

 
Thanks for being with me, and tune in again tomorrow for another little tip like this. Come on over to PlayPiano.com and sign up for our series of tips. They’re all free. Thanks, see you tomorrow. Bye-bye for now.

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About Duane

Duane Shinn (that would be me) has good news for you if you want to play the piano. He (me) has little fat hands & stubby little fingers - not at all suited for playing the piano - more suited to making mud pies or some such. I am also fairly uncoordinated with just average musical ability - certainly not a great piano player. But I've learned a ton about music over the years and people tell me I'm pretty decent at explaining how music works & how to progress more rapidly on the piano. Over the years I have developed about 150 techniques for conquering the piano. Most professional pianists can do these techniques, but very few can explain them in a way people can understand. I specialize in making complex techniques simple. I invite you to watch a few of my free videos and see some of these for yourself before making any decision about taking any of my courses.

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