Let’s look at chord tones for the dominant 7th chord shape. First of all, what is the “dominant 7th” chord shape? In this article when I talk about the dominant 7th chord shape I am referring to a shape that can be moved up and down the fretboard where the root of the chord is on the low E string. I am also referring to a slightly modified version of this chord shape where the root is on the A string.
The following chord chart shows A Dominant 7, otherwise known as just A7, with the root note played on the 5th fret of the low E string.
This shape can be moved up and down the fretboard to play any 7th chord. Moving this shape up 2 frets and playing it on the 7th fret of the low E string gives as a B7 chord.
This shape is modified slightly when we play it with the root on the A string as shown below:
In this version of the chord shape the overall shape is more or less the same apart from where the finger falls on the B string. Because of how the B string is tuned in standard tuning we must compensate for this change by shifting our finger accordingly.
Note that this is not the only way to play dominant 7th chords however for the purposes of this article we are specifically interested in this moveable chord shape.
For the purposes of this article we will be focusing on the chord tones for the first version of the chord shape. Now that we know the basic shape let’s break it down as we look closer at what chord tones are.
Dominant 7th Chord Formula
There is a formula that dictates what notes are in any given chord. It is from this formula that we get our chord tones. The chord tones are the notes (tones) that make up the chord.
For a dominant 7th chord that formula is as follows:
- Root
- 3rd
- 5th
- Flattened 7th
So what does this mean? Well first we must take a slight step back and quickly look at the major scale. In any chord formula when we talk about things like 3rds, 5ths and so on we are talking about what are known as intervals. In simple terms intervals are the order of notes as they appear in the major scale.
The pattern for the major scale is: whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. This is what gets us our notes for any major scale.
When we move from one note to the note directly next to it this is known as moving a half tone or a half step or a semitone.
As revision here are the notes available to us in music:
A, A# / B♭, B, C, C# / D♭, D, D# / E♭, E, F, F# / G♭, G, G# / A♭
Note that a sharp and flat pair (such as A# / B♭) are the same note. They sound the same. Therefore we only have 12 notes available to us in music.
So moving from A to A# is moving a half tone and moving from B to C is also moving a half tone as there is no B# note. Moving a full or whole tone from A brings us to B and moving a full or whole tone from B brings us to C#.
The table below shows the notes of the A major scale in line with the pattern mentioned above:
| Interval | Pattern | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Root | Start | A |
| 2nd | Whole | B |
| 3rd | Whole | C# |
| 4th | Half | D |
| 5th | Whole | E |
| 6th | Whole | F# |
| 7th | Whole | G# |
| Root | Half | A |
Looking at the table above we see that if we start with A as our root, we move a whole tone to B to get the second note in the A major scale. Then we move a whole tone to C#. Following that we move a half tone or a semitone to D and so on following the pattern until we arrive back at our root.
Going back to our chord formula we know that the pattern for a dominant 7th chord is root, 3rd, 5th and a flattened 7th. In relation to the flattened 7th what this means is we find the 7th note in our relevant scale and we lower that a semitone. So in the case of the A major scale the 7th note is G# and by lowering this (dropping it a semitone) we get G.
So with this in mind if we revisit our chord formula for the dominant 7th chord and use A Dominant 7th as our example we get the following:
- Root: A
- 3rd: C#
- 5th: E
- Flat 7th: G
Let’s see how this looks in relation to the actual fingering for the chord:
As you can see, the A7 chord does in fact consist only of the notes in this pattern.
As an aside it is worth pointing out that a standard major chord only has 3 notes whose pattern is root, 3rd and 5th. So for a dominant 7th chord we are taking the standard major chord and are simply adding a flattened 7th.
Making Use of Chord Tones
Now that we know this how does this relate to chord tones? Chord tones are the notes that make up a chord. When we play these chord tones in sequence this is known as an arpeggio. It is one thing to know the shape we need if we wish to play an A7 chord but it is another thing entirely to know what the notes are for that chord.
The reason that chord tones are useful is that we can use them when playing over chords to add some tonal variety. This can help us break out of the ‘pentatonic box’ trap and add a little spice to our playing. When we learn to improvise we might be shown the first pattern of the A minor pentatonic scale and be given a specific chord progression over which to play. As the chords change we can play any notes within the Am pentatonic scale and they will work regardless of what the chord is in the sequence.
When we learn chord tones we can start to incorporate this into our improvisation only now we must be mindful of the chord changes as we do not want to play chord tones for A7 if we are on a different chord.
Let’s stay on A7 and look at a pattern of notes we can use for this chord where we start on the low E string:
The above is a pattern of notes than can be played over an A7 chord.
Like the dominant 7th chord shape itself (or indeed any scale pattern) if we move this up and down the Low E string then we are moving the arpeggio depending on where the root is. This means we can use this pattern over any dominant 7th chord as long as we know both the chord that is being played and where it’s root lies on the low E string.
Practice Exercises
Let’s look at some exercises where we put this knowledge to use:
Exercise 1
Using just the notes in the chord tone tablature above play over a static A7 backing track. Simply make up tunes or melodies while the A7 plays underneath. This will help you get used to how these chord tones sound over this chord.
The following YouTube video has the A7 chord being played on a loop for 5 minutes.
Exercise 2
In this exercise we use a 12 bar blues backing tracking that uses A7, D7 and E7. A standard 12 bar blues chord progression uses the root, 4th and 5th notes from our major scale pattern which, if we look at our table from earlier, we know these notes are A, D and E. We want to stick with dominant 7th chords here hence we use A7, D7 and E7.
For this exercise you need to know the first shape in the A blues scale. For revision purposes the A blues scale is the A minor pentatonic scale with the added ‘blues’ note. The blues note is the flattened 5th of the major scale which in this case is E♭. There is no need to get hung up on the specifics of this as the diagram below outlines each of the notes that can be played during this chord progression.
In the above diagram the red circles indicate our root A note. The green dots are the notes of the A minor pentatonic scale. The blue dots represent the ‘blue’ notes that are added as part of the blues scale. These can all be played over any chord in the progression.
The purple notes represent the notes in the A7 arpeggio that can only be played over the A7 chord. Notice that the only note from our A7 arpeggio not in the A minor scale is C#. A, E and G are all part of this scale and so I choose to represent them in green as part of the A minor pentatonic scale since they can be played over D7 and E7.
Don’t go crazy with the chord tones. Think of them as a bit of spice that you can add into your regular improvising.
Here is the perfect backing track for this exercise (this video shows additional information in relation to chord tones but I recommend ignoring those for now):
Exercise 3
I really like this exercise and it can be done with our without a backing. In the previous 2 exercises we focused on the chord tone pattern with A as the root but now we are going to move the pattern as the chords change. We could do exercise 2 and just move that whole thing (moving the scale and pattern) as the chords change but that’s not what this exercise is about. This exercise is less of an improvisation exercise and more a picking exercise.
For this exercise you need to play each chord tone arpeggio in sequence in time with the beat of the backing track and then move the entire pattern as the chord changes. You are in essence chasing the chords in this exercise. Practice this for a few minutes with the backing track and then without the backing track but try to keep a similar time for both. What you will notice when doing this without the backing track is that playing the arpeggios or the chord tones helps to imply the chords themselves. This is part of the power of chord tones in that they allow us to hear chord changes without necessarily playing chords.
Conclusion
This article is intended to show my understanding of chord tones in relation to the dominant 7th shape when the root is on the low E string. I hope that this is useful to you in some capacity. Next I will be exploring the chord tones for the A string root shape. This will allow us to swap between arpeggios while remaining in roughly the same area of the fretboard.
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