Cmaj7 is C, E, G and B — with the major seventh added on top.
It sounds lush, and only just resolved. The everyday tonic of jazz, bossa and neo-soul.
Tonic — a resting chord, but a soft one.
Play it instead of a dominant in a turnaround, the rest of the turnaround changes with it, not this chord alone.
Also written CM7, CΔ7, CΔ, Cma7 or C major 7.
Cmaj7 is the home chord of C major, where a ii–V–I comes to rest. The dominant’s leading tone doesn’t have to rise to the root: on a major seventh it can stay where it is.
Listen for: The ii’s seventh falls a half step to the dominant’s third, which holds over the barline as the major seventh.
Cmaj7 can be reached without its V: from Fm7 and Bb7, the ii–V of the key a minor third higher. Instead of a leading tone rising into the root, the key’s flat sixth falls a half step to the fifth.
Listen for: The key’s flat sixth holds through the first two chords, then falls a half step to the fifth of the I.
In which keys. Every note of Cmaj7 belongs to C major, E minor, G major and A minor.
Every note of Cmaj7 is in C major and C lydian.
Each of those is a page: the scale across the neck, and the chords it harmonises into — which is where Cmaj7 sits in it. Every scale.
Change one note of Cmaj7 and you have (drop the major seventh), (the fifth becomes the flat fifth), (the fifth becomes the sharp fifth), (add the ninth), (the major third becomes the minor third) or (the major seventh becomes the ninth).
Cmaj7 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
The common shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in how this site is built.
Shows each chord the way this style would voice it, and marks which of its alternatives belong to the idiom.