Building the E7 Chord on the Guitar

Video Transcript

MICHAEL PLUNKETT: Hi. This is Michael Plunkett on behalf of Expert Village. Now, we're going to take a look at our E7 shape. Reviewing, we've got our 1, 3 and 5 scale degrees; that's what make up our major chord for any of the major chords. And then to add that 7th, we take what would be the 7 of the scale and we drop it down to make it flat. We just bring it down one step or as you would see on guitar, one fret equals one step. So in this case, that gives us the note D, and as you can see here, we've got E, B, 1 and 5, D, that's our flat 7 now. That's going to be just an open 4th string, that's a D string on its own. We leave our original 3rd there, G sharp. Now, for the 2nd string, we have an option; we can either leave another 5th, which would be another B, or we could add another of the flat 7th down there, add another D there. It really just depends on what's comfortable for you and what kind of sound you want. I would recommend really trying both; they do have a little bit of a distinct quality to each. And then we top it off with our E here on the high string again. Looking at our scale degrees again, 1, 5, we've got the flat 7 there on the 4th string, our 3 here on the 2nd string, we have the option the flat 7 or the 5, and then coming back to a 1. Playing this is also pretty similar to playing our E major chord. We've got the 2 and 3 on strings five, four, first finger on the third string and then we would just, in this case, we would lift our third finger up and that gives us that open D on the 4th string. We hear that 7th quality. And if I want to play it here also, I can add my pinkie down, 2nd string, 3rd fret, and that also gives me another D, hearing that one. Again, those are the notes E, G--I'm sorry, E, B, D, G sharp, this case D, you could also do this as a B, and that high E. Here's E7 with the B on the 2nd string and with the D. That's the E7 shape.

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