Think of dom7 chords as the “movers and shakers” of western music. They provide a kind of aural energy that moves the music from place to place. If you take a look at any popular song written recently or 80 years ago you’ll see that chord progressions can be lumped into 3 categories – tonic, subdominant, and dominant. Typically a tune starts in a settled place (a tonic chord), moves away to a less settled place (a subdominant chord), moves from there to a very restless place (a dominant chord), and finally resolves back to a tonic chord (a resting place). Let’s take a look at an old jazz staple, Blue Bossa written by Kenny Dorham. Here are the chords with bass notes:

The tune is in C minor. It starts on C-7, a tonic sound, moves to a subdominant sound (F-7 to D-7(b5), then to a dominant sound with the G7(b9), and back again to a C-7, the tonic. Next it modulates to Db major using an Eb-7 (subdominant) and Ab7 (dominant), resolving to a Dbmaj7 (tonic). Lastly it modulates back to C minor with another D-7(b5), G7(b9), C-7. You’ll find this pattern of going from settled places to unsettled places and back to settled places everywhere in our music, be it jazz, classical, pop or blues.

What gives a dominant 7 chord its restless energy? It’s the augmented 4th interval that exists between the 3rd and 7th notes in the chord. Western cultural has developed a special relationship with the aug. 4th, also known as a tri-tone. In the 16th century it was considered the devil’s sound and composers could suffer grave consequences for using it. Today it provides the sense of movement and propulsion that drives music along from start to finish.

It is important to know this because you need to give serious preference to the 3rd and 7th when you are playing a dom7 chord. Unlike maj7 or min7 chords, which give you a lot of freedom with note selection, dom7 chords really need the tri-tone in the voicing most of the time. No worries though, you’ll still be able to create lots of interesting chord shapes.

A very popular strategy mallet players use to voice dom7 chords is to put the 3rd and 7th in the left hand and put some combination of root, 5th, and/or available tensions (9, 11, 13) in the right hand. With this simple method you’ll be able to ensure that the essence of the chord is stated, while still having many other notes to choose from to color and complete your voicing.

Lets find out what all those choices are. The basic scale for a dom7 chord is a major scale with the 7th degree flatted. Many of you will recognize this a mixolydian scale. It includes the chord tones 1 3 5 7 and three tensions 9 11 13. As we discussed with maj7 chords the natural 11th can be difficult to work with. I stay away from it. All the others are available. If you use the voicing technique described above you’ll have 4 notes to choose from for your right hand – 1, 5, 9, 13. You can also invert the notes in your left hand – 3rd and 7th OR 7th and 3rd. This should give you plenty of room to create nice rich open chord shapes. To demonstrate here’s a short excerpt from Jerome Kern’s well-known tune “Yesterdays”.

Each chord contains the 3rd and 7th, either in the left hand or between both hands. There are open and close voicings used, and a nice variety of tensions are included, along with some root or 5ths. Be sure to check out what the top mallet is playing. You want to create little motifs and simple sequences with your top voice, just as was done here.

There are also several additional notes available to use in your dom7 chords. They are called altered tensions: b9, #9, #11 and b13. You’ll often see altered tensions written in the chord symbols of a lead sheet. Find some in your fake book. Look for chords like C7(b9) or F7(b13) or Ab7(#11). Sometimes you’ll see D7alt, which basically says “use whatever altered tensions you want”. If your dom7 chord is in a minor key you can also make use of altered tensions. Let’s go back to Blue Bossa and see how that works. The tune is in C minor which has a key signature of 3 flats. If we analyze the first few bars we would have a I-7 chord, a IV-7 chord, a II-7 chord, a V7 chord, and back to a I- chord. All of those chords are in the key of 3 flats, so when you build your chords you will be using the notes from that key. For the G7 (V7) that means we can add notes like Eb, Bb, and Ab to the voicing. Those notes are all altered tensions – Eb is a b13, Bb and Ab are #9 and b9. It’s true to say then, that when you are working in minor keys think altered tensions for dom7 chords. Clear as mud..??

Sometimes you can use both natural and altered tensions together to create some nice passing note effects in your chords. Here’s an example:

This is a simple V7 to I maj progression in the keys of F major and Bb major. Since we are in major keys altered tensions are not officially available to us for dom7 chords. But here they are being used to create passing notes to move smoothly from one chord to the next. Analyze all the notes used in this example. Be sure you understand how the altered tensions are utilized to create color and movement in the chords. They are pretty much always going to be positioned in the top of the chord where they sound the best. In this example they are used to create a hip little line in the right hand. So let’s wrap this up. We’ve learned that dom7 chords have a very important function in modern music. We’ve learned what notes are needed to establish the dom7 sound and we’ve learned how to ornament that sound with colorful tensions. Make up a random progression of dom7 chords and play through it with just your left hand playing 3rds and 7ths (known as guide tones in “Berklee speak”). Then play it again adding 1 note in your right hand, a root, fifth, or an available tension. Try to make your right hand note move in a logical, musical way. Here is an example:

See how the top mallet is playing a kind of sequence, and the bottom mallets are playing the guide tones to support it. This is “top-down” comping. Try to think this way when you comp. I know, easier said than done. Practice!!

We’ll look at diminshed 7 chords next.

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