Toronto Jazz Piano Lessons: Playing 7th Chords
2024-12-15 - Alvin
Hi there! My name is Alvin Ryze. I’m a professional jazz pianist and music teacher based in Toronto, Ontario. With over seven years of experience teaching jazz, pop, and R&B piano, I’ve had the privilege of helping students develop their skills and confidence in music.
In this blog, I’ll be going over all the 7th chords you need to know to build a foundation in jazz.
Before we learn how to play the chords, we need to get familiar with scale degrees.
Scale degrees in music refer to the individual notes within a musical scale, each assigned a specific position or "degree" based on its distance from the first note of the scale.
- Scale degrees are numbered from 1 to 7 in diatonic scales. Each degree serves a distinct harmonic or melodic function in music.
- For example, in the C major scale: C (1st degree) - D (2nd degree) - E (3rd degree) - F (4th degree) - G (5th degree) - A (6th degree) - B (7th degree)
Here are the 4 types of 7th chords you need to know:
Major 7th:
The Major 7th chord is built upon scale degrees 1-3-5-7.
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Let's build a C Major 7 Chord (CMAJ7):
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The C Major Scale is C (1) - D (2) - E (3) - F (4) - G (5) - A (6) - B (7)
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So the CMAJ7 chord is: C-E-G-B
Dominant 7th
The scale degrees to build a dominant 7th chord is 1-3-5-b7 (flat 7)
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Let's build a C Dominant 7 Chord (C7):
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The C Major Scale is C (1) - D (2) - E (3) - F (4) - G (5) - A (6) - B (7)
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So the C7 chord is: C-E-G-Bb
Minor 7th
The scale degrees to build a minor 7th chord is 1-b3 (flat 3) - 5 - b7 (flat 7)
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Let's build a C Minor 7 Chord (Cmin7):
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The C Major Scale is C (1) - D (2) - E (3) - F (4) - G (5) - A (6) - B (7)
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So the Cmin7 chord is: C-Eb-G-Bb
Minor 7th (flat 5)
The scale degrees to build a minor 7th flat 5 chord is 1-b3 (flat 3) - b5 (flat 5) - b7 (flat 7)
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Let's build a C Minor 7 flat 5 Chord (Cmin7b5):
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The C Major Scale is C (1) - D (2) - E (3) - F (4) - G (5) - A (6) - B (7)
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So the Cmin7b5 chord is: C-Eb-Gb-Bb