A7 chord for guitar. — Musiclearning.Com

A7 chord played on strings 1 2 3 4

This lesson has us looking at inversions of an A7 chord on strings 1 2 3 4

A7 is called a dominant 7th chord built from the 5th degree of a D major scale, D Harmonic minor and a D Melodic minor. All dominant chords are built from the 5th degree of a scale.

To the right shows a fretboard and the only way we would be able to play the A7 chord in root position. Note that this is a rather muddy way to play this chord. Let's look at some other ways:

Very Common A7 in Open

So the chords to the right are the same. One shows the names of the open strings. These would be the most common form of A7 played on the guitar.

A7

A7

A7 in 10th Position

Here is one common way to play A7. This is in 10th position. Notice it does not have an E however you could let your high E string ring. You could let your low E string ring too but you will probably find it sounds muddy and if you do should be written as a slash chord called A7/E

You may recognize the A7 shape as your C7 shape in 1st position. If you took away the Bb you would have your open C chord.

C7 in 1st position and A7 in 10th position on the fretboard

The video to the right shows the chord forms explained below. The video was one of the first videos I put on youtube 10 years ago (little did I know at that time that the channel would go on to grow over 26 million views). I will redo it soon 🙂

2nd and 5th Position

Don't worry about reading music if you don't. The staff is here just for those who do or are in the process of learning to read music.

A7 inversions on the staff in standard notation

A7 inversions on the fretboard in 2nd and 5th position

A7 in 2nd

A7 on the fretboard in 2nd position strings 1 2 3 4

A7 in 5th

A7 on the fretboard in 5th position strings 1 2 3 4

7th Position

A7 in 7th

10th and 14th Position

Don't worry about reading music if you don't. The staff is here just for those who do or are in the process of learning to read music.

A7 in 10th

A7 in 14th

A7 on the fretboard in 14th position on strings 1 2 3 4

Practicing chords along with jam tracks is a very useful and fun way to practice new chord shapes. Start simple with moving only between two shapes and gradually add more shapes. It is also fun to have some fun with some scales in between your chords. Become a member below for more on that 🙂

The Ultimate Guide to Learning Chords

Join Me for This 3 Part Series on Chords

Beginner Series

If you are new to guitar this is the ultimate order to learning your chords. From my 20 plus years of teaching experience this has been proven to get results and make learning your open chords easy. Plus we will get to 4 chords and a very popular progression that is used in tons of songs!

Intermediate Series

This series has us exploring the bar chord and how understanding a little bit of theory can have us knowing 24 chords with just 2 forms.