How to Play Minor Seven Voicing in Jazz Guitar

Video Transcript

Hi! My name is John Armstrong with expertvillage.com. I'm a professional guitar instructor and today we are going to be studying beginning jazz guitar. Next I would like to discuss some minor 7 voicing Okay starting with low E string or the 6th siring. As our departure point of the minor 7, let's go ahead and pick up where we left off with the dominant 7. Here is an A7 and if you remember that chord is creating because here we have the 1st or root note of the major scale combined with the 5th, the flatted 7, the 3rd, 5th and the root again. Well a minor 7 chord is created by having a root of flatted 3rd and a 5th just as if it were a minor triad along with a flatted 7. Our dominant 7 chord here already has our flatted 7 right here as our G note. So what we have to do now is also flatten the 3rd right here. So here we have root 5th, flatted 7, flatted 3rd, 5th and root which is an A minor 7. I can do it in a G minor 7, B minor 7. A minor 7 here, I can do in a B, G, minor B 7. Another popular of playing a minor 7 voicing with the root on the low E string is to do it this way. What I've simply done here is I'm using my middle finger to play my root note. Having that middle finger kind of lay over and ever so lightly touching the side of the 5th string so as to intentionally mute it out. There was my 3rd finger I'm borrowing getting my flatted 7, my flatted 3rd, my 5th and my root. So what I have here is a root omitting to the 5th that was on the A strings, playing nothing on the A strings. Flatted 7, flatted 3rd and 5th and root. Which at first seems like a very difficult voicing but with some practice, actually it is one of the easiest chords you will ever play. At first it seems very awkward. Once it kind of comes to you, I think you will enjoy it.

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