B7 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About B7 — drop 3 voicings
B7 is B, D#, F# and A — B with the flat seventh added on top.
It sounds restless and pointed at something. The third and the flat seventh are a tritone apart and each moves by a semitone into the next chord; that is the engine of a cadence, and the whole vocabulary of the blues.
B7 notes and formula
| B | D# | F# | A |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | ♭7 |
Dominant — it points a fifth down.
Also written Bdom7 or B dominant 7. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play B7
The same operation one voice further down: the third voice from the top falls an octave and becomes the bass.
That leaves a bigger hole under the top three notes, so a string gets skipped: the muted string in the middle is the shape, not a mistake.
B7 has 9 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: B in the bass, D# in the bass, F# in the bass and A in the bass. The one to learn first is the F# shape at the nut.
5 of them sit on strings 6-4-3-2, 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 x-x-9-11-10-11 — no barre. 1 of the 7 shapes here sits in open position. 5 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x21202 | open position | B, root position | F# | barred |
| x24242 | 2nd fret | B, root position | F# | barred |
| xx4445 | 4th fret | F#, 2nd inversion | A | barred |
| 764445 | 4th fret | B, root position | A | barred |
| 797877 | 7th fret | B, root position | B | barred |
| x-x-9-11-10-11 | 9th fret | B, root position | D# | all fretted |
| x-14-13-14-12-x | 12th fret | B, root position | B | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 5 shell, 14 drop 2 and 4 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of B7, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the b9 (C), the 9 (C#), the #9 (C##), the #11 (E#), the b13 (G) and the 13 (G#).
How to use B7
B7 is the V of E, and that is where it goes if it goes anywhere: the third and the flat seventh are a tritone apart, and both resolve by a semitone into E.
Voice by voice, B7 → E. 2 voices move by a semitone, and one note is common to both chords.
| In B7 | Moves | In E |
|---|---|---|
| B, the root | stays where it is | B, the fifth |
| D#, the major third | rises a semitone | E, the root |
| F#, the fifth | falls a whole tone | E, the root |
| A, the flat seventh | falls a semitone | G#, the major third |
In which keys. Every note of B7 belongs to C# minor (the ♭VII) and E major (the V, the dominant).
What to play over B7
Every note of B7 is in B mixolydian, B lydian dominant and B half-whole diminished.
Chords near B7
Change one note of B7 and you have B (drop the flat seventh), Bmaj7 (the flat seventh becomes a major seventh), Bm7 (the major third becomes a minor third), Badd9 (the flat seventh becomes a ninth), B6 (the flat seventh becomes a sixth) or B7sus4 (the major third becomes a fourth).
B7 is a dominant chord — root, major third, fifth, minor seventh. Dominant seventh chords on every root.
On B7’s sound and use this page follows Edward Aldwell & Carl Schachter, Harmony and Voice Leading (Schirmer / Cengage, 4th ed., 2011). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.