How to find 7 and maj7 chords?

[phucuong5415]

if that right to find a maj7 chords, first you got to play root chords and move one key left then you got maj7, and if move two key to the left then you got 7 chords? is that right?

[Bob]

No one's going to understand what you're talking about.  I still can't after rereading that.

Just take a major scale and stack up thirds on that.  That's an easy way to find them and it relates them to the major scale/key.  You end up with a M7 on the first step, m7 on the second, m7 on third, M7 on fourth, V7  domanant seventh on fifth step, m7 on sixth, and half-diminished seventh on the 7th step.

[keypeg]

I read your other post, and it looks like you are following a book that presents it in a confusing way.  This might help.
https://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory17.htm
Some of these books give a fast way to show how to play something in one of its forms, but they are not really explaining what they are.  That is confusing.

[keypeg]

I think I can actually figure out what your book is doing, Phucuong.

First let's figure out what the "7" in "major 7" means.  Supposing that you have a chord where the root (lowest note) is C.  All of the notes starting from C are C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C.  If you count them, C is note no. 1, B is note no. 2 etc.  So in CEG we are using notes 1,3,5.  If we skip another two notes we get to note number 7, which is B.  So CEGB is some kind of 7 chord.  There are two possible kinds of 7 chords.   CEGB has a "major 7" chord because of how high up the 7 is.  If it were any higher, like a half tone higher, it would be another C.  That's as high as it can go.  Another 7 chord would be CEGBb.  that 7 chord is lower down.  It is simply called a 7 chord.

Chords can be in any order.  Like the "C chord" can be CEG, GCE, ECG and it's still the C chord.  Same for your 7 chords.

For what your book is doing (I think): So supposing that you start with CEG.  If you play a note just under that C by going to the next key to the left, then you get BCEG.  That has all the notes of our major chord.  It is CEGB but spelled differently.  If instead you play a note that is two half steps or two piano keys down from the C you get BbCEG, which is like the CEGBb spelled differently.  So what they are doing "works" and it's easy to do on the piano.  It just makes it hard to understand what these 7 chords actually are.

I think the diagram in the link explains it much better.

[pianoplayjl]

The way I was taught was to find the 7th note from the bottom note and to recognise the inversions. After finding the 7th note I was told to lower it half a step. E.g.

CDEFGABC

B is the 7th note from C and so I lower it a semitone to get Bb. Another way was to just make a tonic triad e.g. C g e and just add a minor third to the top note.

JL

[keypeg]

That must be what Phucuong's book is doing.

[pianoplayjl]

I don't understand what his book is saying but perhaps so.

[nystul]

Here is another way to look at it.  The notes in a major seventh chord come from the corresponding major scale: CMaj7 = CEGB.  The notes in a minor seventh chord come from the corresponding minor scale: Cm7 = CEbGBb.  Now the dominant is the fifth scale degree.  C is the dominant in the key of F.  So the notes in a C dominant seventh come from the key of F major: C7 = CEGBb.  In fact the point of C7 is very often to lead you to an F chord.  In any case you are building by thirds (skipping a note in the scale) starting from the root, although you can play them with inversions or open voicings.  This is very straightforward way of looking at seventh chords if you already know your scales.

[keypeg]

Here is another way to look at it.  The notes in a major seventh chord come from the corresponding major scale: CMaj7 = CEGB.  The notes in a minor seventh chord come from the corresponding minor scale: Cm7 = CEbGBb.  

My teacher and I talked recently in an inherent danger in how these chords are named.  We have major chords (CEG) and minor chords (CEbG).  We're discussing two kinds of sevenths.  The "minor seventh" is a minor 7 from the root (or from the tonic of a scale) so C to Bb.  But we commonly simply call this kind of seventh "the seventh".  CEGBb, which is C7 or a seventh chord, actually has a minor seven in it.  The other kind of seventh would be C to B, and we call that the "major 7th".  

The problem is that when we are saying "major seventh chord", the word "major" goes with seventh, not with chord (the triad part).  I.e. a "major chord" is CEG, a "minor chord" is CEbG, a seventh chord is CEGBb which is a major triad with a minor 7th, and a "major seventh" is CEGB which is still a major triad, but with a major 7th.  The word "major" in "major 7th" refers to the 7 and not the triad.

But then you say "minor seventh", and this time the word "minor" revers to the triad, and not to the 7th.  CEbGBb.  Then if we have a minor triad with a major 7, suddenly we're using "major" and "minor" to refer to the triad, and then to the seventh.  CEbGB would be a "minor major 7th"  because the triad CEbG is a minor triad, but the CB is a major 7th.

Now the dominant is the fifth scale degree.  C is the dominant in the key of F.  So the notes in a C dominant seventh come from the key of F major: C7 = CEGBb.  In fact the point of C7 is very often to lead you to an F chord.  In any case you are building by thirds (skipping a note in the scale) starting from the root, although you can play them with inversions or open voicings.  This is very straightforward way of looking at seventh chords if you already know your scales.

Agree with everything.

There is a problem in the naming, though.  I'd like to see C ^maj7, where the major and 7 are clearly together, so that we don't accidentally read it as Cmajor⁷

[pianoplayjl]

Here is another way to look at it.  The notes in a major seventh chord come from the corresponding major scale: CMaj7 = CEGB.  The notes in a minor seventh chord come from the corresponding minor scale: Cm7 = CEbGBb.  Now the dominant is the fifth scale degree.  C is the dominant in the key of F.  So the notes in a C dominant seventh come from the key of F major: C7 = CEGBb.  In fact the point of C7 is very often to lead you to an F chord.  In any case you are building by thirds (skipping a note in the scale) starting from the root, although you can play them with inversions or open voicings.  This is very straightforward way of looking at seventh chords if you already know your scales.

Yes I agree. I remembered when I first started learning the dominant 7ths scales that I played the tonic note when the scales specified 'play the dominant 7th of F' which I played the F dominant instead of C dom. It took me a while before my teacher corrected me and took me a hell of a time to re learn the scale.

JL

[nystul]

The problem is that when we are saying "major seventh chord", the word "major" goes with seventh, not with chord (the triad part).  I.e. a "major chord" is CEG, a "minor chord" is CEbG, a seventh chord is CEGBb which is a major triad with a minor 7th, and a "major seventh" is CEGB which is still a major triad, but with a major 7th.  The word "major" in "major 7th" refers to the 7 and not the triad.

But then you say "minor seventh", and this time the word "minor" revers to the triad, and not to the 7th.  CEbGBb.  Then if we have a minor triad with a major 7, suddenly we're using "major" and "minor" to refer to the triad, and then to the seventh.  CEbGB would be a "minor major 7th"  because the triad CEbG is a minor triad, but the CB is a major 7th.

I think before going too far with studying extended chords, it's important to get some sense of the dominant function.  We can practice this C major scale and play the transition from G chord to C chord, and see examples in music of this common cadence, and then learn dominant seventh version of the G chord.  The point being, we have a convention with chord symbols where things like G7 or G9 or G11 or G13... these are all dominant chords.  And we should probably call them dominant chords even if we don't write it out that way.  If we understand what the dominant part means and what scale that chord type is coming from, then all the extensions simply take care of themselves.  Then if you look at major chords as being derived from their own major scale, the extensions also take care of themselves.  Plus you have the right starting point for any additional alterations like b9.

The big problem with my way of thinking is the minor sixth.  If you think of a minor chord as being derived from the natural minor scale, then you might expect Cm6 to have an Ab.  At least that's exactly what I thought and played the first time I saw it.  I suppose that here, your way of thinking that the minor applies to the triad part works out better (but you still must make note that the sixth, ninth, etc. are major by default).  Another way to look at it is like minor chord comes from dorian mode, but that is kind of a shaky explanation.

[keyofc]

I agree that thinking in terms of the major scale is easiest way to find your major 7th chords.

Keep it simple as possible - because theory gets complicated enough.

If you want C Maj 7
Play the scale in numbers -when you get to b - you are at 7, since you're playing the c major scale you have a  major 7th because it's part of the major scale.
Add your c chord to it and you have it.

[Bob]

It will make extended chords easier to understand too.  The 9th, 11th, and 13th are from the major scale, even when it's a minor extended chord.

[cjp_piano]

My teacher and I talked recently in an inherent danger in how these chords are named.  We have major chords (CEG) and minor chords (CEbG).  We're discussing two kinds of sevenths.  The "minor seventh" is a minor 7 from the root (or from the tonic of a scale) so C to Bb.  But we commonly simply call this kind of seventh "the seventh".  CEGBb, which is C7 or a seventh chord, actually has a minor seven in it.  The other kind of seventh would be C to B, and we call that the "major 7th".  

That's why we identify the triad quality AND the 7th quality. But then that's too much, so we have shorthand:

C E G B = MM7, shortcut "M7" (major 7th)
C E G Bb = Mm7, shortcut "7" (7th)
C Eb G Bb = mm7, shortcut "m7" (minor 7th)

[albesureful]

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