Playing Seventh Chords
The seventh chord is just the basic triad chord with a fourth note added.
Seventh chords are displayed in the middle column of the Chord Selection Matrix in their scale degree positions. Seventh chords have the number “7” affixed to their chord name.
Seventh chords add a lot of variety, tension and uniqueness to chord progressions.
As with the triad chords, ChordWalk displays, in blue, the individual notes of each selected seventh chord on the instrument display.
You can play the individual note sounds of the seventh chords or any note display by selecting them on the Keyboard image.
Now you have an additional seven chords to choose from to develop your own unique chord progressions. Just move between triads and seventh chords and experiment with different chord sequences. Remember where the major and minor chords are positioned. A huge number of the greatest hits produced over the last 50 years have used just three or four chords in the song.
In many cases, major key songs contain just the three major chords. For the four-chord songs, they contain just the three major chords with the VI minor chord added. For seventh chords, the Dominant seventh, in the V position, is a very strong chord and is very effective when it precedes the Tonic.
Play around with different progression sequences, and be your own judge.