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Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: Question on Major & Minor chords (in reply to Guest)
You might see Gmaj7, which would be G major 7th. This is a chord made of the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. These are intervals from a major scale. You probably know the major scale of do re mi or can sing it.
Gm7 means G minor 7th, which is built on the same principle: the root, the third, the fifth, and the seventh of the _minor_ scale. The minor scale is a little differnet than the major, so the the third and seventh are each one half step (1 fret) lower than the correspondong Gmaj7 chord.
G7 is called a dominant chord or a seventh chord, and it's built this way: Root, third, fifth of major scale, plus seventh of minor scale. It's a distinctive chord that is usually paired with the "tonic" or main chord of the song. For example, G7 goes with C, B7 goes with E, A7 goes with D.
If you want to learn this stuff, and you should, you can do a search on google for music theory and can learn the basics in a few hours.
RE: Question on Major & Minor chords (in reply to Guest)
whenever you have just the 7 is a minor 7th, for instance G7(major triad with a minor 7th), if you have Gm7 would be the same that G7 but with a lower 3rd(minor triad with minor 7th) And the Dm would be just a Dminor triad, without 7th... If you have just D it would be major
Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Question on Major & Minor chords (in reply to Guest)
Just to add, I have seen capital letter "M" stand for major as well. GM7=Gmaj7= the notes GBDF# Also I have seen a Triangle after a chord indicate major chord with major 7th. G"triangle"7
For minor chord you have lower case "m" or "-" the minus sign. Gm, or G- = the notes GBbD Gm7 or G-7= the notes GBbDF
The minus or triangle is used more in Jazz since a lot of charts are written by hand.
You can also have the chord be minor with a major 7th: Gm(maj7)=GBbDF#
To get more complex, you have chords that have 9, 11, 13. Typically, unless indicated other wise the root chord is based off of the dominant7th
G9 is like G7 (Gmajor with minor7th) with the 9th added, so the notes GBDFA. G11 implies the 11th added to the dominant 9th chord GBDFAC, G13 is GBDFACE, or all the notes of the scale. In actual practice you omit certain notes when playing the guitar, like you can only play GBFE to make a G13.
But you can have Gm13, where you have the same chord with a Bb instead of B.
The point is to have a quick way to read chords so you can sight read a chord chart.
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