Hey! I'm Nate Savage and welcome to the video #3 of the Blues Guitar Quick-Start Series.
In this lesson, we're going to learn about dominant 7th chords or just 7th chords. We're
going to learn a few shapes for dominant 7th chords and then we're going to learn how to
apply them to the standard 12-bar blues progression. 7th chords or dominant 7th chords are one
of the major contributing factors to the over-all sound of the blues. The blues doesn't always
use dominant 7th chords but it’s really common to see dominant 7th chords all throughout
blues songs. And dominant 7th chords are made by adding a lowered 7th scale degree to a
major chord. Don't worry too much about that right now. I just kind of want to expose you
to the idea of what a dominant 7th chord actually is.
The focus of this lesson is going to be just on learning some dominant 7th chords shapes
in getting your ears familiar with the sound of dominant 7th chords. Now, generally major
keys only have a dominant 7th chord show up one time and that's for the V chord. When
we're playing in the blues, you can get away with the use of dominant 7th chords for all
the chords in the standard 12-bar blues progression, the I, the IV and the V chord. That's kind
of the magic that lies in the blues somewhere between the major and the minor tonality.
Let's move on to learning some dominant 7th chord shapes. It's important that you know
at least some of these. So, let's just go ahead and continue with the key of E blues
that we've been working in. So, if you know the I, IV and V chord in the key of E, E,
A, and B. It would be great to learn 7th chords for those chords. So, we're going to do that.
For your E 7th chord or E dominant 7th chord, it's really easy if you know your open E already.
If you get that down there, all you have to do is take your third finger off of that 4th
string and that's your E dominant 7th chord. So your first finger is going to end up on
the 1st fret of the G string and your second finger is going to end up on the 2nd fret
of the A string. And you can strum all six strings. And one thing that's going to be
good for you right now to do, just go back and forth between a E major chord and then
a E dominant 7th chord. Just listen for the difference. And make sure when you're making
this chords come right down to the very tips of your fingers and right behind the frets
too, so you could get a really good clean sound.
The next chord that we need to learn is an A dominant 7th chord. So, let's kind of learn
this the same way. Let's get our open A shape on there. Make sure to leave your low E string
out for that. And kind of the same idea applies here. All we’re going to do is take our
middle finger off of that chord shape. And that will give us our A dominant 7th chord shape.
And really listen for the difference between that A major chord shape and the A
dominant 7th. You’re going to want to memorize and be able to recognize dominant 7th chords right away.
The last 7th chord shape we need to learn
to be able to play through our E blues progression is a B dominant 7th chord shape. And this
one is a bar chord shape so maybe a little bit tougher for you if you’re not used to
it. But get your bar on the 2nd fret and then what we’re going to do is basically make
the same A major shape with our second, third and fourth fingers. And you can just again,
same idea, take that finger off that, third finger off to play a B dominant 7th bar chord
shape. Now this fingering is a little bit weird. I usually don’t make it like that.
What I end up doing is just grabbing the 4th fret of the D string with my third finger
then my pinky stays in the 4th fret of the B string right there. My bar stays in place.
So that’s the fingering that I used for that chord shape.
Once you have these chords down, you can try to apply them to the standard 12-bar blues
progression. Now, make sure you have them down so you can go right to them on their
own before you start trying to switch through them. Otherwise, you’re going to be frustrating
yourself when you try to play to the 12-bar blues progression with these chord shapes.
So, here’s an example of what this will sound like when you are able to play to the
entire 12-bar blues progression with these dominant 7th chords.
Did you see how dominants 7th chords kind of make that 12-bar blues progression sound
just more bluesy. Try to commit the sound of dominant 7th chords to memory so when you
hear them, you can instantly recognize them. I wanted to give you some more dominants 7th
chords shapes, so you can kind of learn at your leisure. So, kind of look at this part
of the lesson as a reference for the future for when you’re learning how to play blues
in other keys. Alright, the first one I wanted to show you
was a G dominant 7th chord and if you reference this back here to open G, all we're going
to do is move this note right here on the 3rd fret of our high E string down 2 frets.
And to do that, we can keep our second and third fingers where they are and just come
play the 1st fret of the open E string with your first finger there. So that's your change,
from G major to G dominant 7th. The next dominant 7th chord I wanted to show
you was the C dominant 7th, so get your open C on there. And you're going to leave your
three fingers where they are. And all we're going to do is come down on the 3rd fret of
the G string with your pinky. Make sure to leave your low E string out and that's your
C dominant 7th shape. Listen to the difference. The next chord shape we're going to learn
is a D dominant 7th so, just for reference let’s get our open D chord on here. And
the fingering for this one changes a bit because we have to move this note here on the 3rd
fret of the B string all the way back here to the 1st fret of the B string. So what we're
going to do to have kind of facilitate that is put your third finger on the 2nd fret of
the high E, second finger on the 2nd fret of the G string and your first finger is going
to come back here and grab that 7th, that lowered 7th on the 1st fret of the B string.
Make sure to leave the E and A strings out of this chord.
The last of the 7th chord shape I wanted to share with you was for your E bar chord shape
but I'm playing the A bar chord here usually E bar chord shape. It's really easy to make
that into dominant 7th chord shape. So, all you have to do is take you pinky off and
now you're playing the dominant 7th chord. For whatever bar chord location you’re playing,
so in this case I'll be playing an A dominant 7th using the E dominant 7th bar chord shape.
Take your time with all these extra dominant 7th chord shapes I just taught you. You may
not be using them right away but they're always going to be here for you when you need them.
So, pull up the jam track for this lesson. You can use either the 70 beats per minute
one or the 100 beats per minute one and try to apply your dominant 7th chord shapes to
the standard 12-bar blues progression. If you need to, keep your rhythm really simple
and just concentrate on the chord changes. If you have any questions about dominant 7th
chords or how to apply them to the 12-bar blues progression, leave it here in the comments
and I'll be back to you. Also you could e-mail me nate@guitarsystem.com.
In the next lesson, we're going to approach blues rhythm guitar a little bit different
angle instead of using just power chords or 7th chords to play through your standard 12-bar
blues progression. We're going to learn a blues riff to play through the blues progression.
See you in the next lesson.