So you've starting to get the hang of barre chords on guitar, and you're starting to wonder what's next?
In today's lesson we're going to take your barre chord knowledge to the next level!
By the end of the lesson you'll know:
- The theory behind 7th barre chords on guitar.
- 6 new 7th barre chord shapes to spice up your strumming patterns.
- How to play 7th barre chords in different areas of the guitar fretboard.
- How to practice those shapes.
Let's Jump right!
Disclaimer: You can use any major scale shape you know.
So in the key of G, to play a G major barre chord, we just add an F# note to create a G major seventh chord shape.
Now all we need to do find a way to add the F# To the major Chord we already know.
Notice how we have multiple G notes. All we need to do is replace one of the G notes with an F# to create our Major 7 shape.
To make this 7th barre chord shape work, you'll need to rearrange your fingering, check out the diagram above for the correct fingering.
Check out @1:34 for a more comprehensive tutorial.
Disclaimer: This shape is movable, just like all other barre chord shapes.
For dominant 7 chords, all we have to do is add the seventh degree of the respective major scale to the existing major barre chord shape.
IMPORTANT: But this time it's the flattened 7th degree of the scale.
Dominant 7 Barre Chord = major Triad (1-3-5) + Flat 7th degree
Therefore the major 7 formula is: 1-3-5-b7
I'm going to pick up the pace from here on out because the process is the same.
So in this example we're adding the F note instead of F#.
All I have to do here is remove my pinky.
Check out min @3:20 for a quick demonstration.
For minor 7 chords, we're still adding the flattened seventh degree of the respective major scale, but we are doing so to the minor barre chord.
Minor 7 Barre Chord = minor Triad (1-b3-5) + Flat 7th degree
Therefore the major 7 formula is: 1-b3-5-b7
We are adding the F note to the G minor chord, and we get this shape.
Check out min @4:12 for a quick demonstration.
Now that you guys know the formula of each of the 7th chords, we're going to do the same process for the root on 5 major and minor barre chords, this will leave us with these 7th barre chords shapes.
Now that you know the 7th barre chord shapes, it's time to practice using them.
Practice the chord shapes and experiment with different progressions that include major seventh, minor seventh, and dominant seventh chords.
I've given you a 12 bar blues progression you could use to practice, it includes A minor seven, D minor seven, F major seven, and E7 chords.
But you could chose to do that over any progression you know.
Check out min @5:41 for a more in depth tutorial.