Learn New Guitar Chords - Dmaj7 / D major 7 / D major 7th guitar lesson

I had requests on Instagram to add audio/video of me playing my ‘Chord of the Day’ so I though it best to create a video when I post a new chord with some additional insight, and add it to YouTube and my website blog. Today’s chord is the D major seventh (Dmaj7). Adding the major seventh to a major chord instantly gives it that dreamy, jazzy quality and this is no exception. It’s a great little workout for your barre finger 1 if you’re just getting started out with barre chords. When harmonizing the major scale, the maj7 chord is found upon the 1st and 4th scale degrees, so you can safely replace a I or IV chord with a Imaj7 or IVmaj7 (as long as it sounds good!). In a minor key, it would be a bIIImaj7 and bVImaj7. This Dmaj7 could then be used in the key of D major (or its relative minor, B minor) or A major (F# minor). Always use your ears though when trying different chords in a progression. What’s particularly of interest is that any maj7 chord can be thought of as a minor triad formed upon the major 3rd (3) of the maj7 chord. In this example, the 3 is the note FTherefore, you can play a Dmaj7 chord by playing an F# minor triad over a D bass note (thinking in slash chords - F#m/D). With that knowledge, you can quickly play three different voicings of the Dmaj7 by playing up the three inversions of the Ftriad on string set 1 (EBG). My newest course ‘TRIADS: Inside Out’ is now open for enrolment and will go into much more detail about triad substitution for...