How to Construct Seventh Chords A

seventh chord is a four-note chord created by adding a note a third above any of the four types of triads. There are three main ways to think of building seventh chords: 1. Adding a note a third above a major, minor, augmented or diminished triad. 2. Stacking intervals above a root. 3. Constructing seventh chords from the major scale. Each of these approaches will be examined separately. It is worthwhile to understand each of them. Luckily, each approach is closely related to the others, so it shouldn't be too hard to learn all of them.

Building Seventh Chords by Adding a Note to a Triad

Seventh chords can be thought of in terms of the quality of the triad, which will be major, minor, augmented or diminished, and the interval between the root of the chord and the seventh. This interval can be a: major seventh, minor seventh, diminished seventh. A seventh chord can be built by creating a combination of each chord type with each interval. In practice, there are eight kinds of seventh chords that are encountered frequently, although combining each type of triad with each seventh interval allows for more possibilities. Many of these possibilities are enharmonic to other chords or are used infrequently, so they aren't covered here. The chart below shows how to combine triads with various kinds of sevenths to create each seventh chord:

How to Construct Seventh Chords

Building Seventh Chords with Intervals

Like triads, seventh chords can be constructed by stacking intervals in a specific pattern above a root note. The chart below lists the type of chord and the specific intervals for the third, fifth, and seventh of the chord.

How to Construct Seventh Chords

Building Seventh Chords with Major Scales

Seventh chords can be created by starting with the triads created on each degree of the major scale. This is done by stacking another note above the top note in the triad. The extra note should be a third above the highest note in the triad. For example, if you want to create a seventh chord on the tonic in C major, you would start with a C major triad and add a note a third above the top note in the chord. The top note in a C major triad is G, so a third above that would be a B. Keep in mind that the note that you add to each triad should be diatonic to that major scale. There is a specific pattern of seventh chords that occur on each scale degree. For example, the seventh chord built on the fifth degree of the scale is always a dominant seventh chord. The table below lists the type of chord and Roman numeral for the seventh chord on each degree of the major scale. The example below shows the seventh chords in the C major scale:

Only four types of seventh chords occur naturally in the major scale: major, minor, dominant, and half-diminished. The other kinds of seventh chords are created from other scales and, with the exception of the fully-diminished seventh chord, are used less frequently.

How to Construct Seventh Chords

Chord Symbols for Seventh Chords

The symbols used for each kind of seventh chord is shown in the chart below. Unfortunately, there is no standardization for these symbols, so you may see a different symbol for the same chord depending on where you look. The preferred symbol is listed along with common alternate symbols. The preferred symbol is the one that is most common, the most correct, and/or the clearest in indicating the type of chord. These are the symbols that will be used on this site. This chart shouldn't be considered an exhaustive list of symbols for each chord, as there are probably many other variations.

Here is an example of how these symbols could be used to label the seventh chords in C major