All right, here we go...
Lets take a look at some root-position 7th chords from the C Major & A Minor scales.
Things Worth knowing from the get-go:
-7th chords are to Jazz what power-chords are to heavy metal, they are the the genre's "bread & butter Chords" so to speak.
-Before we try to deal with some of the more common Jazz Chord progressions, it would make sense just to get some of the chord fingerings under our finger-tips.
-Every complete 7th Chord has four parts/members we need to be aware of
1.) a Root
2.) a 3rd
3.) a 5th
4.) a 7th
*As many of you most certainly already know, 7th chords are simply Major or minor triads plus one more member (which we call 7ths)
-There are 5 types of of "7th Chords", they are
1.)Major 7th Chords= Root+Major 3rd+Perfect 5th+Major 7th
2.)Minor 7th Chords= Root+Minor 3rd+Perfect 5th+Minor 7th
3.)Dominant 7th Chords= Root+Major 3rd+Perfect 5th+Minor 7th
4.)Half-Diminished 7th Chords= Root+Minor 3rd+Dim5th+Minor 7th
5.)Fully Diminished 7th Chords= Root+Minor 3rd+Dim5th+Dim7th
For simplicity's sake, lets restrict ourselves to what are called "root position" versions of these chords for the time being.
These are the Root-position 7th chords from the C-major scale, I will give them to you with the members stacked from lowest to highest in the following order (Root,5th,7th,3rd).
C-Major
e|---------|---------|---------|---------|------|---------|--------|
B|-5-------|-6-------|-8-------|-10------|------|---------|--------|
G|-4-CMaj7-|-5-Dmin7-|-7-Emin7-|-9-FMaj7-|-4-G7-|-5-Amin7-|-7-B-1/2|
D|-5-------|-7-------|-9-------|-10------|-3----|-5-------|-7-Dim7-|
A|-3-------|-5-------|-7-------|-8-------|-5----|-7-------|-8------|
E|---------|---------|---------|---------|-3----|-5-------|-7------|
A-minor
e|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|------|
B|---------|---------|-5-------|-6-------|-8-------|-10------|------|
G|-5-Amin7-|-7-B-1/2-|-4-CMaj7-|-5-Dmin7-|-7-Emin7-|-9-FMaj7-|-5-G7-|
D|-5-------|-7-Dim7--|-5-------|-7-------|-9-------|-10------|-3----|
A|-7-------|-8-------|-3-------|-5-------|-7-------|-8-------|-5----|
E|-5-------|-7-------|---------|---------|---------|---------|-3----|
So for any Major Key, the
1 Chord is Major7th
2 Chord is Minor7th
3 Chord is Minor7th
4 Chord is Major7th
5 Chord is Dominant7th
6 Chord is Minor7th
7 Chord is 1/2 Diminished7th
And for any Minor Key, the
1 Chord is Minor7th
2 Chord is 1/2 Diminished7th
3 Chord is Major7th
4 Chord is Minor7th
5 Chord is Minor7th
6 Chord is Major7th
7 Chord is Dominant7th
~This concludes part 1 of Nick's Jazz Series
