AmMaj7 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
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- Fingers, notes or intervals
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About AmMaj7 — drop 2 voicings
AmMaj7 is A, C, E and G# — Am with the major seventh added on top.
It sounds tense and wrong-footed. A minor triad carrying a major seventh: the semitone under the root over a minor chord is the first bar of a line cliché.
AmMaj7 notes and formula
| A | C | E | G# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 |
Minor tonic — the tonic of the melodic minor.
Also written AmM7, Am(maj7), A-Δ7 or AminMaj7. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play AmMaj7
Take the four notes stacked as close together as they go, then drop the second voice from the top an octave. The gap it opens is what makes the chord sound like a chord rather than a cluster.
It lands on four adjacent strings, which is why it is the workhorse voicing on guitar.
AmMaj7 has 13 of them, on the middle four strings, the bottom four strings and the top four strings, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: A in the bass, C in the bass, E in the bass and G# in the bass. The one to learn first is the A shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the middle four strings, so you can run the inversions up one set without changing strings — which is the whole reason to learn them as a family rather than as separate grips.
Start with x02110 — no barre and 2 open strings. 1 of the 7 shapes here sits in open position. 1 of the 7 needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x02110 | open position | A, root position | E | 2 open strings |
| x32254 | 2nd fret | C, 1st inversion | G# | all fretted |
| xx7554 | 4th fret | A, root position | G# | all fretted |
| 576555 | 5th fret | A, root position | A | barred |
| xx7998 | 7th fret | A, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-12-10-9-9-x | 9th fret | A, root position | G# | all fretted |
| x-12-14-13-13-12 | 12th fret | A, root position | E | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 6 shell, 9 drop 3 and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of AmMaj7, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (B), the 11 (D) and the 13 (F#).
How to use AmMaj7
How you get to it. The turn that lands on AmMaj7 is Bm7♭5 to E7♭9: the ii and the V of A minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
What to play over AmMaj7
Every note of AmMaj7 is in A harmonic minor and A melodic minor.
Chords near AmMaj7
Change one note of AmMaj7 and you have Am (drop the major seventh), Amaj7 (the minor third becomes a major third), Am6 (the major seventh becomes a sixth), Am7 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh), AmMaj7b5 (the fifth becomes a flat fifth) or AmMaj9 (add the ninth).
AmMaj7 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On AmMaj7’s sound and use this page follows Mark Levine, The Jazz Theory Book (Sher Music, 1995). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.