How to Play Major 7th Chords on Guitar

This post will teach you how to play and construct Major 7^th chords on guitar.

Major 7^th chords are commonly confused with “dominant 7^th chords but the two are different chords altogether.

What are Major 7^th Chords

Major 7^th chords are major chords with a “major” 7^th.

On the other hand, dominant 7^th chords (the most common 7^th chords) are major chords with a “minor” 7^th note (a.k.a. flat 7^th).

If you are looking to learn dominant 7^ths rather than major 7ths check out the links below.

• Open 7^th Chords
• Barre 7^th Chords

Major seventh chords are less common than dominant 7ths but can add a distinct flavor to your sound if you choose to incorporate them.

• A major 7^th chord uses the Root, Major 3^rd, Perfect 5^th, major 7^th
• A dominant 7^th chord uses Root, Major 3^rd, Perfect 5^th, minor 7^th
• For example a Dmaj7 uses a D (root), F# (major 3^rd), A (perfect 5^th) and C# (major 7^th).
• Whereas the dominant 7^th would use D (root), F# (major 3^rd), A (perfect 5^th) and C (minor 7^th).

As you can see there is only one note difference. Simply by changing the minor 7^th note in the dominant 7th chord to a major 7^th (up one semi-tone) you create a major 7^th chord. If you are new to this it can sound really confusing but playing it out on the guitar will help it to make sense.

Because a major 7^th uses the major 7th note (just a semi-tone away from the root note) the chord tends to sound more dissonant than a dominant seventh and ironically sounds more “minor” (to me anyway) – despite the name.

How to Notate

The most common way to write a major 7^th chord is by writing “maj7” after the chord name. For example an E major seventh would be written “Emaj7”.

There are other ways such as M7 (with a capital “M”) but maj7 is the most common and what I will be using in this lesson.

Common open major 7^th chords

Below are the chord charts for 7 open major 7^th chords.

If you aren’t sure about chord charts check out the link below.

• Major open chords plus chord charts explained

Cmaj7

Dmaj7

Alternatively you could play this using your 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd fingers but I find it easier to barre the notes with 1 finger.

Emaj7

Fmaj7

Gmaj7

Amaj7

Bmaj7

What next?

Now it’s time to practice!

Practice these chords and learn how to fit them in with other chords. These chords can really open up your repertoire whether you are learning songs or writing songs.

Next week I will take a look at how to construct major 7th chords using barre chords. Following that I will get into minor 7^th chords.

I hope you’ve found this post useful. If you have any comments or questions please feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

If you think you’d prefer to learn via video lessons there are some good ones online these days. Check out some of my online lesson reviews here or check out the “online lesson reviews” menu above.