Dominant 7th Chords

Now we're ready to delve deeper into chords and how we can add spice to our music. First, we are going to look at making a major 7th chord into a dominant 7th chord. It's really very simple. All we do is flat (lower a half step) the 7th: C, E, G, Bb (b = symbol for flat). Or if you want to think of this in scale degrees it would be 1, 3, 5, b7. The symbol for this chord would be C 7.

This dominant 7th chord can be played in all the inversions: 1st inversion (E, G, Bb, C), 2nd inversion (G, Bb, C, E), and 3rd inversion (Bb, C, E, G).

Now lets look at doing this with a different major chord:

F M7 = F, A, C, E

F 7 = F, A, C, Eb

ROOT = F, A, C, Eb
1st inversion = A, C, Eb, F
2nd inversion = C, Eb, F, A
3rd inversion = Eb, F, A, C

Now we're going to do this with the G7 chord:

G M7 = G, B, D, F# (# = symbol for sharp, which means raise the note a half step)

G7 = G, B, D, F (root)

1st inversion = B, D, F, G
2nd inversion = D, F, G, B
3rd inversion = F, G, D, B

Notice we have made this chord a dominant 7th (or 7th) chord by flatting the 7th, which made the F a natural F instead of an F#.

One of the keys to jazz is the 7th chord. 7ths are added to almost every chord in jazz music. It is much more complex than that, but that is one of the first rules of thumb in jazz.

Now we are ready to learn how Roman Numerals work in music, which we will venture into on the next post.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!!!