iReal Question

[funky8884]

Hi everyone, 

I am a beginner in music theory and am starting to read and play along with some charts on iReal,

My question is about the attached progression, as I understand it is Dminor7 - G7 - Cmajor7 - Cdiminished7 

I am confused with the G7 and Cmajor7 - are they both major 7's ? just written differently in the picture ?

The last C - Cdiminished7 is this the same as a min7b5 ?  

 

Thanks 

 

Wade

[SubsonicSimpleton]

G domniant 7 is made up of the notes G,B,D,F so it is a major triad with a minor 7 - there is a tone/whole step (2 frets) gap between the 7th and the root

C major 7 is made up of the note C,E,G,B so it is a major triad with a major 7th - there is a semitone/half step (1 fret) gap between the 7th and root

A C dominant 7 chord would contain the notes C.E.G,Bb, a G major 7 chord would contain the notes G,B,D,F#.

A C diminished chord is a stack of minor third intervals, so the seventh is flattened twice so it would contain the notes C,Eb,Gb,Bbb - the Bbb note is enharmonically the same as A natural, but we spell it Bbb because A natural is the major sixth.

A Cmin7b5 chord would be spelt C,Eb,Gb,Bb.

To avoid confusion and to get come clarity on where the voice leading is happening with a chord progression, I have always found it helpful to simply play through any new progression using first just the arpeggios ascending, and then progressing to playing them ascending from the lowest available note, then descending, then starting on the third, fith, seventh,then move to a different place on the neck and repeat, then do it on only one string at a time etc etc.

so looking at your chord progression you have

Dminor7 D,F,A,C

Gdominant7 G,B,D,F

Cmajor7 C,E,G,B

Cdiminished7 C,Eb,Gb,Bbb

 

Once you have the arpeggios sorted you should already be capable of playing through the progression, now you can start experimenting with taking different routes through the chord tones and using scale tones or chromatic passing tones to join things together in ways that sound a bit more interesting but still make musical sense.

 

Once you are comfortable try transposing the progression one step in each direction round the cycle of fourths/fifths and take the time to spell out the chords in full correctly for the new key (so from C major, F major introduces 1 flat, Gmajor introduces 1 sharp) - if you are just getting to grips with theory the process of learning the chord tones (and not cheating by sliding visual shapes around the neck) will make it much easier in the long term to understand and digest more complex topics.

 

[funky8884]

Brilliant ! Thanks

I had it all except the Cdiminished7 C,Eb,Gb,Bbb

I will walk through the progression now and thanks again for our help and tips