What is a G7, D7, and A7 in music?!
Question: In my school's jazz band, there is a section of a song that says "open for solos" and it has slashes in the measures such as, /
then over the measures it will have a sign such as, D7 or G7 or A7. What exactly do they mean? Are they keys such as key of D or key of E minor?
Answers: In my school's jazz band, there is a section of a song that says "open for solos" and it has slashes in the measures such as, /
then over the measures it will have a sign such as, D7 or G7 or A7. What exactly do they mean? Are they keys such as key of D or key of E minor?
Oh, man. This'll be fun.
So you know about keys, like you've said -- the key of D or E minor. I'm sure you've noticed the accidentals in the key signature -- that you'll see a Bb or an Eb, perhaps an F# or C#. Ever wonder why you always see F# first?
It's because music follows a set pattern -- each key is a selected set of notes from the chromatic scale (C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B). For instance, you have C major, which is C D E F G A B. Notice the difference between the chromatic scale and the C major... I'll write it again, with the missing chromatic notes in parenthesis.
C (C#) D (D#) E F (F#) G (G#) A (A#) B
See how you skip over some of them? You start on C (the key you're in), skip one, go to D, skip one, go to E, etc. The space between each of the twelve chromatic notes is called a "half-step." Therefore, skipping one is called a "whole step." So, looking at our C major scale again, we see this:
C (C#) D (D#) E F (F#) G (G#) A (A#) B
root - whole step - whole step - half step - whole step - whole step - half step (to get back to the root)
Start with G instead, this time, following the same pattern, and you'll get your G major scale...
G (G#) A (A#) B C (C#) D (D#) E (F) F#
Now, what you're asking about is much in the same vein. Say you're in the key of C (C D E F G A B). You have chords that will make up the building blocks of the particular song. Chords are generally three or four notes stacked atop each other that provide the groundwork of the song. Your basic chords have three notes -- the root, the third, and the fifth. These follow the same pattern as the notes in the key -- so a G major chord will have the first, third, and fifth notes from the G major scale -- G, B, and D.
So the basic chords of the C major scale (C D E F G A B) are C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major, A minor, and B diminished. Each type of chord -- major, minor, and dimished (to start with, anyway) -- follows the same pattern of whole and half steps, like a key.
For instance, the major chord will have two whole steps between the first and third (the first two notes in the chord), and three half steps between the third and the fifth (the second and third notes in the chord). Check out the breakdown of the C major chord:
C (C# D D#) E (F F#) G
A minor chord has three half steps between the root and the fifth, and two whole steps between the third and the fifth.
C (C# D) D# (E F F#) G
Please note that I've been limiting myself to sharps to avoid confusion. Writing a C minor chord as C-D#-G is technically incorrect. Since you follow thirds, they should be written as such. Since you normally think of C and D as being two consecutive notes, you would write C minor as C-Eb-G to preserve that idea.
The diminished chord has three half steps between the first and third as well as between the third and fifth. I'll write it properly this time:
C (Db D) Eb (E F) Gb
There are other types of three note chords, too -- I'll just write them in C for quickness and clarity. There's the augmented (C-E-G#), the suspended second (C-D-G), and the suspended fourth (C-F-G).
All of these have shorthand. A major chord gets no suffix -- so a C major chord is written C. Sometimes you will see Cmaj. Minor chords get a lowercase m -- a C minor chord would be Cm. Diminished chords would be Cdim; augmented, Caug; suspended second, Csus2; suspended fourth, Csus4.
You can add notes to your basic three-note chord. Most commonly, you'll add the seventh to it. When you see "7" on its own (like C7, for instance), add another note three half-steps away from the fifth.
C (Db D Eb) E (F Gb) G (Ab A) Bb
This may seem weird, since Bb isn't in the key of C (C D E F G A B). The reason for this is that the seventh is most frequently added to the fifth of a key (i.e., G7 in the key of C). Making the fifth chord (better known as the "dominant") a seventh chord helps give the key identity.
If you add "maj7" to a chord's name, you add another note that's two whole steps away from the fifth, like so:
C (C# D D#) E (F F#) G (G# A A#) B
So, in your sheet music, they're telling you what chords are being played underneath your solo. You'll now know while looking at it that the notes are specifically...
D7 - D F# A C
G7 - G B D F
A7 - A C# E G
These are good notes to hit over these chords, because they're already present. If you're really feeling adventurous, you should look into scale/chord relationships. There are all sorts of different scale and chords constructions out there, and some of them sound really great in combination, and are extremely useful in improvisation and soloing. Look them up online, they're fairly easy to find.
And please, please, please -- don't make the same mistake I did. Please show this to your band director and ask him/her for help if there are things that are confusing you, or that you're unsure about in this! And they'll have lots more information for you to wrap your head around once you get this under control.
Happy playing!
they are a variation of the D, G, and A keys
D 7th, G 7th. A 7th
Seventh Notes
a 7 seventh chord conatins the seventh note in that note diatonic scale, it sound diferent and odd *** the seventh note is diminished, i wont bore you but basically, you have a few options, solo wise: eg for G7: a G major scale, G major pentantonic, G petatonic or even a G diminshed scale cmbined with any of these, you can learn these scales in music book or a quick google the same applies for the chords. also ultimate-guitar.com has tabs on how to play scales and chors so have a look around, if you need anythink else just get in touch :)
Joe