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This Issue: Playing With 7ths

There is a lot to be gained from raising or lowering individual voices within a chord, plus finding the different inversions on the fretboard. In cases like this, the guitar’s limitations can force us into some interesting situations, which may lead to unexpected creative solutions!

These chords all make use of the open low E string as a root note, but can be converted to movable chords with the omission of any open strings. Seeing chords with numbers and symbols in the name can throw many of us, but understanding this terminology can free us to invent a more varied chord accompaniment. This will take time to assimilate – while it’s obvious that playing these chords will get you started on the right road, listening out for and recognising similar ideas in use by others will also help.

Example 1

This Eaug7(#9) omits the 5th string, which can be muted with a spare finger to allow you to rake across the chord. The ‘aug’ part comes from the #5, C in this case, played on the 5th fret of the G string. The (dominant) 7th is found on the second string, with the #9 on the first. Both of these are at the 3rd fret.

Example 2

b9 Moving from a #9 to a gives a different kind of dissonance, perhaps a Spanish sound if played on a nylon-strung guitar.

E7(b9), b9 In this the (F) is hiding away at the 3rd fret of the D string, clashing with the root, but softened by the major 3rd (G#) on the G string and the dominant 7th (D) on the B.

Example 3

This chord is often referred to as an Eaug7, but the structure of the intervals suggests that the C found at the 1st fret of the B string is best described as a

E7(b13). flat 13th, giving us In the end, all of this jargon is just trying to describe a sound, so bear this in mind.

Example 4

b Another version of the E7#9( 13) chord. It could be argued that this is an Eaug7(#9), too, but in isolation (ie, not as part of a chord progression), there is no need to get caught up in this. Actually, there wouldn’t really be a good reason to get caught up in this even then…

Example 5

b9. Here is another voicing of E7 We have b7, b9, (in ascending order): root, 3rd, 5th and another root to top it off. It’s quite easy to omit this high E to give a top/ potential melody note of B – an insight into how players like Martin Taylor arrange harmonised chord/melodies.