Seventh Chords in the CAGED Shapes
The same five shapes, one note changed — 7, maj7 and m7 up the neck.
The five CAGED shapes are the open major chords, barred and moved up the neck. Every guitarist also knows five open seventh chords — C7, A7, G7, E7 and D7 — and they are the same five shapes with one note changed. Bar them, move them, and the whole CAGED map works for seventh chords too: any dominant seventh in five places, and, with the changed note moved one more fret, any major seventh; the minor sevenths follow the minor shapes.
Above are the five of C7, each in its own color — the C7 shape open at the nut, then A7, G7, E7 and D7 up the neck, in the order the letters spell. Tap a letter to mark one, pick it from the menu to see it alone, change the chord in the capsule, step ‹ › up the neck, or tap any note to see which shape holds it. The figure follows the text from here on.
The open seventh chords
Play open E, then open E7: one finger lifts. Open A, then A7: one finger lifts. D to D7 and G to G7 each move one finger down two frets; C to C7 adds a finger. That is all a seventh chord is on the guitar — a major triad with its ♭7 in place of one of its doubled notes — and since the five shapes are the five open chords, the five seventh shapes are the five open seventh chords. Nothing new to memorize: five moves you already make.
Where the seventh goes
A shape doubles the root, and in four of the five the seventh takes a doubled root's place. In the E7 shape the root on the D string comes down a whole step; in the A7 shape it is the root on the G string; in the D7 shape the root on the B string; in the G7 shape the root on the high E — the note that was under your little finger. The C7 shape is the odd one: its two roots stay, and the fifth on the G string moves up to the seventh instead, which is the finger you add. Look for the seventh in each shape and you find it a whole step under a root every time — a picture worth having, because it is the same picture on any instrument.
Major seventh: a half step, not a whole
Move that one note up a fret and the chord is a major seventh: Cmaj7, Amaj7, Gmaj7, Emaj7, Dmaj7, again the five open chords, again in CAGED order. The Emaj7 shape and the Amaj7 shape are the two barre chords most players actually use; the Cmaj7 shape is the open Cmaj7 everyone knows, its B-string root let down to the open B; the Gmaj7 and Dmaj7 shapes are less common open but move as well as the others. The seventh sits a half step under a root now, and that half step is what makes the chord sound the way it does: dominant is the whole step, major seventh the half.
Minor seventh: three you play, five on the map
Make the same move on the minor shapes and you have the minor sevenths: the Am7 shape and the Em7 shape — the fifth-string and sixth-string minor barre chords with the seventh in — cover every minor seventh between them, and the Dm7 shape is there for the high register. The Cm and Gm forms were already the ones nobody barres whole (see the minor set): what survives of them is a four-string partial, and the figure draws each with its seventh in — the Cm7 form and the Gm7 form, the fifth moved up to the ♭7 as in the C7 shape — so the map has all five letters. Learn them as places on the neck, not as grips: nobody plays them, and the shapes the chord explorers offer stop at three.
Up the neck
The shapes chain the way the triads do. The E7 shape at the third fret is G7; above it the D7 shape, then the C7 shape, the A7 shape and the G7 shape, and then E7 again an octave up. Change the root in the figure and the five slide together, the seventh riding along a whole step under its root. A seventh chord in any key, in five places — the CAGED map with one more note on it.
The scale around a seventh chord
Every seventh shape sits inside a scale position, just as the triads sit inside the pentatonic boxes — but the scale changes with the chord. A dominant seventh's scale is mixolydian, the major scale with the same ♭7 the chord has: here is the E7 shape inside its position. A major seventh sits in the major scale, a minor seventh in the minor scale. The chord is four of the position's notes, the position is the chord plus the notes within reach, and the seventh in the chord tells you which scale it is.
Smaller than the shape
Barred whole, a seventh shape is five or six strings for a chord that needs four notes — and only three of those matter. The root, third and seventh are what make it major, minor or dominant; the fifth adds nothing you can't hear from the root, and the doubled notes are the guitar's habit, not the chord's. Take them away and you have the shell voicings: the same chords in two or three fingers, moving between each other by a fret. Turn the chord over and you have its inversions, four of them for a four-note chord. Both are where the CAGED letters stop helping and the degrees take over — a seventh chord is 1, 3, 5 and 7 wherever you put it, and once you can build it from those it doesn't matter which letter the shape had. The app's Build Shapes game deals a seventh chord, shows its root and asks for the rest, on any instrument; on the guitar, the first shapes it asks for are these five.
Questions
- Does the CAGED system work for seventh chords?
- Yes — the five open seventh chords C7, A7, G7, E7 and D7 are the five CAGED shapes with one note changed, and barred they move up the neck the same way. Raise that note a fret and the same five shapes are major sevenths; the minor shapes give Am7, Em7 and Dm7.
- Where is the seventh in a CAGED shape?
- A whole step under one of the shape's roots. In the E, A, D and G shapes the seventh takes the place of a doubled root — on the D, G, B and high E string respectively; in the C shape the fifth on the G string moves up to it. For a major seventh the same note sits a half step under the root instead.
- Are there five minor seventh shapes?
- Three you would play: Am7, Em7 and Dm7. The Cm and Gm forms are the two minor shapes nobody barres whole; their four-string partials with the seventh in complete the map but are not grips anyone uses. The Am7 and Em7 shapes cover every minor seventh chord between them.
- What scale goes with a seventh chord shape?
- Mixolydian for a dominant seventh — the major scale with the chord's ♭7; the major scale for a major seventh; the minor scale for a minor seventh. Each shape sits inside one position of its scale, the way the triads sit inside the pentatonic boxes.