by If you’re a bass player and you know how to find the roots of chords, you can be functional.
If you know how to find your roots, thirds and fifths of all your chords, you can be professional.
If you know how to find your roots, thirds, fifths and sevenths of all your chords, PLUS the scales that go along with them, then you can be unstoppable.
It can get tricky trying to make sense of all the jargon, not to mention the unusual symbols that plague the more ‘advanced’ chord symbols. And that’s not even everything that’s tricky about them.
There are so many instances where you have the same exact thing, but 4, 5 or 6 different ways of expressing it on the page.
Or some things are so similar that it can be hard to tell what is what. The big example here is a ‘major 7th’ chord and a plain old ‘7th’ chord. They’re different, but it’s so easy to mix them up.
That’s why in today’s lesson, I want to draw back the curtain on these ‘advanced’ chords and show you exactly how they work. And even though it can seem overwhelming, I want to show you that it’s simpler than it might seem on the surface.
If you’ve been keeping up with lesson 1 and lesson 2, you already know how to find your 4 types of triads. Now all we have to do is add either a major 7 or a minor 7 to each of the chords. That’ll give us eight 4-note chords.
Simple, right? Very logical and straightforward, but only if you’ve been following along learning the foundational parts of learning your triads.
Check out the lesson here:
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FREE - Download The Chord Cheat Sheet Pack
Never get stumped on what to play over any chord ever again.
- Learn how chords are made and played
- Use the scale catalogue so you can always be sure you're playing the correct scale for every chord
- Handy table so you always know what notes are in any chord
Some of the chords we end up with are super common, like the dominant 7, minor 7 or major 7. Some of them barely get used at all or only in very specific circumstances, like the major 7 #5.
Once you know how they’re put together and your options for playing over them though, life gets very easy for you. You never have to stumble around wondering what works over what. Instead, you can breeze through even the most complicated chord changes without breaking a sweat.
As always, if you have questions – or if you have a tricky chord that you’re not sure what to do with – let me know. Leave a comment down below and I’ll do my best to get back to you!
Good luck with the lesson and happy playing!
Cheers,
Luke I down loaded 3/3 twice and I did not get it
Hey Frank – you’ll need to go to your email account and find the email confirmation message. Just click the green button in there and you’ll be taken straight to the pack. Also be sure to check your spam folder just in case it was routed into there by mistake.
By the way, the email address you left when you made this comment came back as not existing. Maybe it’s a spelling error, but you may want to check that too.
Is there a 3/3 PDF document? Thanks!
Hey Emerson – Everything from the whole chord symbol series is in the one PDF that’s available on this page. If you have any troubles getting it, just let me know and I’ll sort it out for you.