Hey there I'm going to show you three versions of the G major 7th chord first and easy one.
The next one will be probably the most common one and then the third one will be my favorite.
Y'all I think you're gonna love it of course I'm a little biased. Let's do this.
Okay, let's get right to this. Fortunately all three versions sound pretty good. I'll
start with the easiest one. We're gonna put the first finger on the second fret first string,
the next string third fret, next string fourth fret and the next string fifth fret. I said that
on purpose so you can see that they're all one fret apart. So that's the first string,
second string, third string and fourth string. Fourth string? There. Good. No. There, that's it.
Okay, try it with me. Come on. First finger on the second fret of the first string. Now
we got the third fret second string, fourth fret that's the third string and
then the fourth string. I think I got it this time. Yes, that's a G major 7.
Now version number two is very common and I think it's actually the first one that Iearned
and it's particularly common in jazzy stuff and that's when I learned it when I was learning
jazz progressions. So let me show you what it looks like. One thing to keep in mind
about this version is I'm not actually playing all the strings and I'll show you what I mean.
First let's get the fingering. So let's take the first finger on the third fret
of the sixth string. The second finger is on the second string that same third fret
and the third and the pinky together on the fourth and third strings. Here's what it looks like.
Now when I say I'm not playing all the strings, this first finger is slightly angled so it's
deadening out the fifth string. It's not part of the chord and the same thing with the first
string. I'm actually touching it with the palm of my hand so it's not ringing also.
I'm playing four strings even though I'm strumming down on all six.
Now I want to show you another neat way that some people find it's easier to remember the chord.
Make a B major 7. That's assuming you know a bar chord Bm7 then leave all the fingers except the
first where they are and move the first finger over to the third fret of the sixth string.
Now you gotta angle it of course so it's just touching the fifth but not the other strings.
Now there's many ways you can write a G major 7 chord out.
Of course the most obvious is to just write the whole chord out like this G major 7. But a very
common way is to abbreviate by using this Gmaj7. Also when I'm using a word processor sometimes
I'll just use a capital M like that. It's a little fuzzy because some people might mistake that for
a minor. Of course when I write a minor, I use a baby m but you know it's pretty close.
Finally when I’m handwriting here's what I usually write - G (triangle)7 -
that's a triangle. That's kind of a jazz way of writing a chord and it's very quick
when you're handwriting unfortunately not so easy to do with a word processor or a
computer. Let's get back to that fingering for that third version.
And now for a third version which happens to be my favorite. I remember I first learned this
fingering for the G major 7 when I was learning a song by the Gypsy Kings. Looks like this ----
it's a very open full chord and not that hard actually. Unlike this one, it's not really
movable either. This is unique to the G major 7. You can't move it around the fretboard. Let's
finger this together. Put the second finger on the sixth string third fret that's that G bass note.
Now we're going to take those other three fingers and make something like that first chord.
The first finger is on the second fret of the first string.
The third finger is covering that third fret of the second string. And then the third
string I've got the pinky down on the fourth fret. I am again muting out this fifth string
so my second finger is slightly angled down just touching it so it doesn't sound.
Once you get the basic fingering and you practice it several times you might want to
try it with a few other chords to get used to changing from one to the other. Here's
a fairly easy progression that I took from my Moonlight Samba song on my heart coming home CD,
G major 7 - this is a type of E minor. Now a Cadd9 and a D7.
Well that's all I know for now. If you found this helpful please give me a thumbs up. I appreciate
it and one more thing before you go practicing this in the context of some kind of progression
is the best way not only to really nail the chord but to get used to playing it with other chords.
To help with this, I've created another video that will give you a chance to practice this
chord with some other interesting chords. I've got a link to that coming up right about now.