Here are all 12 of the dominant 7th chords…

)

Here is a transcript of the video in case you would like to follow along:

Good morning. This is Duane, and today I’d like to take up one of the most used and important chords – the dominant 7th chord. We’ve been working through the basic chord types. We took major and minor and diminished and augmented and 6 and minor 6 so far. The next chord we’re going to take up right now is called the dominant 7th chord. In common usage it’s just called a 7th chord, but it needs to be differentiated from the chord which his called a major 7th chord.

This is not a minor 7th chord. A Minor 7th chord is like that, but a dominant 7th chord or just a plain 7th chord if you saw the symbol C7th that’s what it would mean. B flat not B natural. It’s made up of a major 3rd, a perfect 5th, and a minor 7th. Or up from the 5th, a minor 3rd. In any case it’s not the scale 7th. It’s the flat 7th of the scale. That’s C7. Of course it’s C7th in any inversion. If I turn that upside down it would still be C7th no matter how I voice that.

This is called the root position by the way of the C7th chord. 1st inversion, 2nd inversion, 3rd inversion. Then back to the root and so on. Okay. A 7th chord is a major chord plus the lower 7th. What would F7th be, or F dominant 7th? I will stop saying dominant 7th, and I’ll just refer them as 7th. Okay. What would a 7th be to add? It wouldn’t be the 7th degree of the F scale, but it would be the flat 7th, the lower 7th. That’s F7.

How about G7th. What would that be? The G scale goes like this. We wouldn’t use the scale 7th. We’d lower it a half step, so that’s G7th, all white. Here’s a D major chord. Where’s D7th? There it is, up a minor 3rd because the 7th degree of the scale is C sharp. Here’s the E major chord. The 7th degree of the scale is D sharp, so we won’t use that. We’ll use D natural the lowered 7th. That’s E7. Let’s come down here a little bit. A. A7th. D flat. D flat 7.

Notice that this note here, it looks like a B, but it’s got to be called C flat. B is some sort of 6. If you notated that, if you wrote it on paper you’d have to write C with a flat in front of it. I know that’s puzzling to relative beginners, but that’s just the way it is in music theory. Here’s E flat major. E flat 7th would be the lowered 7th. Here’s the A flat major chord. A flat 7th. G flat. G flat 7th. B major. B 7th. B flat. B flat 7th.

Just to sum up a dominant 7th chord or just a normal 7th chord is made up of the root third and fifth, the major chord, plus the lowered 7th degree. Not the scale 7th degree, but the lowered 7th degree. You can always find it that way. If I were you it would be a good idea to play through all the chords we’ve taken so far like C major, C minor, C diminished, C augmented, C6, C minor 6, then C 7th. Work through all the chords that way to get it under your fingers.

I would do it in both hands too. Major, minor, diminished, augmented, 6, minor 6, 7th. G major, G minor, G diminished, G augmented, G6, g minor 6, G 7th. Just play through all the chords that way. Probably hands alone at first and then hands together. If I did it hands together, that’s the D chord. D minor is there. D diminished is there. D augmented is there. D6 is there. D minor 6 is there. D7th is there.

It’s probably a good idea to break them up, too, because in music you’re going to, as you play, you’re going to use patterns like that with broken chords. In any case, that’s the dominant 7th chord. It’s a very useful chord, and you use it all the time in music, so get acquainted with that. That’s it for today. If you like this sort of thing come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips. Hope to see you there. Bye bye for now.

Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxaEwoEhs_Y

Here is a Wikipedia article about the dominant 7th chord: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_seventh_chord

——————————————————————————————