Eb7 guitar chord

1st inversion · G in the bass
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About Eb7 — uncommon voicings

Eb7 takes the stable major triad and gives it somewhere to go. The new voice is ; together the notes are Eb, G, Bb and Db.

sits a whole step below the next root. In the pair below, that single arrival changes a major chord from a resting point into a dominant.

Hear the change

One repeated root moves down a whole step to the flat seventh. The other notes stay the same.

Follow that pull to , the major chord a fourth higher. The third rises while the flat seventh falls, closing around the new root.

Also written Ebdom7 or Eb dominant 7.

Eb7 uncommon guitar chord diagram: Eb, G, Bb, Db, played 3x132x
Eb7 uncommon guitar chord voicing: 3-x-1-3-2-x.

What these less common shapes are

How to use Eb7

1The pull home

V in A♭ major

Eb7 is the V of A♭ major. Its third and seventh are a tritone apart, the most unstable interval there is, and each resolves by a half step into the I. The dominant a tritone away shares those two notes, so it resolves the same way.

Compare with

Listen for: The dominant’s seventh falls a half step to the third of the I. Under the tritone substitute it is the same note.

2The home chord of a blues

I7 in a blues

In a blues, Eb7 is the home chord rather than a V: it moves to Ab7 and back without resolving. Its third and seventh each slide down a half step to become the seventh and third of Ab7, so the shape stays the same, one fret lower.

Listen for: Both notes above the bass drop one fret into the IV and come back: the third becomes the IV’s seventh.

Other uses

From the books, without a worked example
  • The VI7 of a turnaround
    VI in G♭ major

    In the turnaround in G♭ major, jazz players usually replace the vi chord with Eb7, and usually alter it.

    1. Gbmaj7
    2. Eb7
    3. Abm7
    4. Db7
  • The Tad Dameron turnaround
    tritone substitutes in a turnaround

    Replace the VI7, II7 and V7 of a turnaround with their tritone substitutes and you get Dmaj7, F7, Bb7, Eb7. Eb7 is the last, a half step above the I.

    1. Dmaj7
    2. F7
    3. Bb7
    4. Eb7

In which keys. Every note of Eb7 belongs to F minor and Ab major.

What to play over Eb7

Useful scales

Every scale

Chords near Eb7

Remove a note

  • 2nd inversion
    2nd inversion
    − Db

    Remove the flat seventh.

    See Eb chord →

Change one note

Dominant seventh 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.

Midi Settings

7.5
Play Style
One pass of the pick from the lowest string up, everything left ringing.
Instrument
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Style

Shows each chord the way this style would voice it, and marks which of its alternatives belong to the idiom.

Layout

Left Handed Mode