After looking at triads/3-note chords, we can now add more notes and colour to our chords.
Looking at major chords, 7 chords (either Major 7 or Dominant 7 chords) are the next step up in chords after triads. We get there by adding a 4th note to the Major triad.
Remember, our Major triads are stacked in 3rds. A Major Triad = 1 3 5 (The 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes from the major scale stacked up on each other).
Keeping the pattern of stacked 3rds, the next logical note to add would be a 7.
So 1 3 5 7 = a Major 7 Chord.
If we lower the 7 a semitone, we get 1 3 5 b7. This is called a Dominant 7 chord.
Here are some of the chords we're going to look at and how you will see them written down. I'll use C for all of these examples.
1. C Major7 will be written out either as CMaj7 or C△7
2. C Dominant 7 will be written out as C7
3. C minor7 will be written out as Cm7
4. C minor Major7 would be written out Cm(Maj7) or Cm△7
So, in triads, we can move some of the notes around to get different chords and the first thing to do would be to lower the 7th by a semitone to become a b7. This makes our chord a dominant 7 chord.
Looking at the four examples above, we start out with all the natural notes from the Major Scale and build our triads on the root note of that scale.
Major 7 chords is 1 3 5 7
Dominant 7 - Lower the 7 a semitone so it spelling is 1 3 5 b7
Minor 7, same as the dominant 7 except we make the 3 minor by lowering it a semitone so its spelling is 1 b3 5 b7
Minor (Major7) This is a minor triad 1 b3 5 with the natural 7 on top. So it's spelling is 1 b3 5 7
In the video, I also show you 9 chords. These are 5-note chords, so after building up in 3rds from the root (1 3 5 7), the next would be 9 (The 9 is the same note as the 2, just an octave higher). We will look at more chord extensions like 11's and 13's later.
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