Piano Tricks

Many musicians like to stick to the regular Maj chords when they are playing. What I try to do is deviate from that rigid block like style of playing and use different types of chords as substitutes to make playing piano much more fun and interesting. Now I'd like to give you a few pointers on using "Major Seventh Chords." Ex. CMaj7, DMaj7 etc..

The Maj7 chord is nothing complicated. Just like when we covered Sus2 chords all we have to do is add the note that is indicated. In this case we just add the 7th note to the chord. For example: CMaj: CEG CMaj7:CEGB

The addition of this seventh note can serve as a great tool for switching between the I chord and IV chord (Ex. CMaj7 to F.)


Now this video gives you a graphic picture of what the chords look like and how to form them. If your still confused on the exact notes for certain Maj7th and min7th chords below is a list of the most commonly used ones in the key of C

the commonly used Major and Minor Seventh Chords are as follows
CMaj7: CEGB
FMaj7: FACE
Dmin7: DFAC
Emin7: EGBD
Amin7: ACEG

Now that you get the drift of what a basic Maj7 and min7 chord is like you can try playing them in other keys as well.