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So far in the course we have covered the most common three note chords, but many pieces use chords made up of four different notes. Through the process of harmonising the major scale, this lesson derives the major 7, minor 7, dominant 7 and m7b5 chords.
- Deriving the Four Part Harmony (p1)
- The Major 7th (p1)
- The Minor 7th (p2)
- Four Part Harmony Results (p2)
- Dominant Seventh Chords (p3)
- Minor Seven Flat Five Chords (the 'Half Diminished Seventh') (p3)
- Conclusion (p3)
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Previous Lesson: Three Part Major Key Harmony
Next Lesson: Lead Effects
In the Three Part Harmony lesson we derived from the major scale a sequence of chords consisting of three notes. We are now going to apply the methodology we used in that lesson to derive some new chords, but this time we are not going to stop once we have assigned three notes to a chord. The purpose of this lesson is to derive the four part harmony so we are, surprisingly enough, constructing chords consisting of four notes. Although more complex than the basic major and minor chords, these are some of the most common and important chords in guitar music.
Deriving the Four Part Harmony
Let's start, as we did in the Three Part Harmony lesson by looking at the scale of C Major:
C, D, E, F, G, A, B
To derive our four note chords we will cycle through the scale starting on the root note as we did in the previous lesson, skipping a note every time. Rather than stopping once we have selected three notes we are now going to continue until we have four. To form the first chord of the harmony, we start on the root note, C. We skip D but include E in the chord, skip F but include G in the chord and finally skip A but include B in the chord.
The Major 7th
The notes C, E, G and B are the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th notes of the C Major scale. Chords which follow this formula are called major 7th chords (recall that chords with the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of a major scale are referred to as major chords).
Listen to an MP3 of a major 7th
Popular chord shapes to play the major 7 are illustrated below - the diagram on the left has the root note of C on the low E string and the diagram on the right has its root note on the A string.
This chord maintains the bright sound of the major chord but the addition of the 7th note (B) creates within the chord a dissonant interval with the root. Try playing the individual notes C and B and hear that when the two notes are played together they do not sound very harmonius.
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