7th Position C major scale
How to build the diatonic 7th chords
Californication Part 2 - Strumming
G7 arpeggio and G7 one chord jam
Iceman

Review Lesson 13

Reading Lesson 14

Scales - C Major in 7th Position

Here is another form of a 2 octave major scale.

In lesson 8 we did a 2 octave C major scale that had a stretch. Many of you will be happy to know that this one doesn't.

Note that we are starting on the same 8th fret C but this time it should start with your second (middle) finger. It is considered a 7th position scale because your index finger is looking after the 7th fret.

The fretboard diagram to the left is 7th position C major pentatonic (major scale missing 4th and 7th degree). In this case the F and B are taken out.

The form to the right has the high D on top and would also be considered extended. Most people simply refer to it as one of the 5 pentatonic shapes. It could be considered C major or A minor.

7th Position
C Major Pent. Ext.

C triad:

1 3 5
C E G

Cmaj7th chord:

1 3 5 7
C E G B

The Dominant 7th Chord

Dominant 7th chords will be written as a letter and a 7 and if you notice from the above diatonic 7th chords there is only 1 in the key and it is G7 (the V chord). The dominant chord will use a minor 7th interval (10 half steps) from the root. You can also call this interval a flat 7 (b7). So the dominant chord in the key of C major was G7 but I first want to build C7 so we can compare to Cmaj7 that we explored above.

C triad:

1 3 5
C E G

C7th chord:

1 3 5 b7
C E G Bb

Notice that C7 could not belong to the key of C major because it has a Bb in it. The other thing we know is that C7 has to be a V chord. To figure that out we count back 5 letters or up 4. We end up with F. If we build an F major scale and make the diatonic 7th chords, we find C7 is the V chord.

A very popular dominant 7th chord form. We simply add our 4th finger to a Bb on the 3rd fret of our G string and we have C7.

Or you can call it C dominant 7.

G triad:
1 3 5
G B D

Open G7

To the right is a very common way to play G7, however you could also take your C7 form from above and move it to 8th position for G7. Both the high and low E would need to be blocked.

Arpeggios

In Lesson 6 we learned a 2nd position D arpeggio and if moved to 7th position would be a G arpeggio and in Lesson 13 we made that 2nd position D arpeggio a major7th arpeggio by adding the 7th degree of the D major scale to the arpeggio. If we move that to 7th position it would be Gmaj7th.

To make it a G7 arpeggio we would have to lower the 7th degree by 1 half step. So in the case of G, we would lower the F# to an F and because we know that dominant chords are V chords it makes sense because G7 would be in the key of C which does not have any sharps or flats.

Fun with Dominant 7th chords

We will use our C7 form from above to play this great Albert Collins riff. It can be used to play a great 12 bar blues called Iceman.

Strumming

The Red Hot Chili Peppers song called Californication will have us working on a new strum pattern and a chance to play Fmaj7th.

This Fmaj7th chord has us bringing our thumb up over the top of the fretboard in order to play the low F. The open high E would the be the major 7th. If you build an F major scale, E will be the 7th note. Watch the video below for a complete breakdown of the strum pattern.