Welcome to the most recent installment of Chord by Chord, a series designed to build your understanding of harmony and the fretboard. In the last lesson, you discovered how to make A7 chords all around the fretboard. This time you’ll do the same, however with E7.
E7 is a type of dominant seventh chord– keep in mind, a significant triad plus a flatted seventh. An E major triad is spelled E G # B, as displayed in Example 1, and an E7 chord includes the notes E, G #, B, and D (Example 2).
If you play a standard open E chord, you can make an E7 simply by eliminating your 3rd finger, as illustrated in Example 3a. You might also get an E7 by taking the open E shape and including your fourth finger on the third-fret D on string 2 (Example 3b).
Example 4 shows how to make a closed E7 voicing on the inner four strings, and Example 5 demonstrates how to form E7 from an E barre chord in seventh position. Keep in mind that you might consist of the open low E string for a thicker noise. See Example 6 for some less typical voicings greater up the neck with the third (G #) as the most affordable note.
You must now understand a variety of ways to play E7 across the fretboard. The Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week” is a terrific example of a tune that makes use of the E7 chord. In the next lesson, we’ll continue checking out dominant seventh chords, focusing on B7.
