Ear Training - How Seventh Chords Work

Introduction to Seventh Chords

In this class, we will study five types of seventh chords.

Please play these chords on the piano and sing up and down the tones using solfege. What are the commonalities and differences between them?

The table below explains the characteristics, harmonic function, and solfege of each of the seventh chords. Please commit this table to memory.

Chord Name	double diminished (fully diminished) 7	half diminished (diminished minor) 7	minor-minor 7	major-minor 7	major-major 7
Symbol	dd 7	dm 7	mm 7	Mm 7	MM 7
Intervallic Structure of the Chord	diminished triad + minor third OR three stacked minor 3rds	diminished triad + major 3rd	minor triad + minor 3rd	major triad + minor 3rd	major triad + major 3rd
Common Harmonic Function	vii07 in minor keys	iiØ7 in minor keys OR viiØ7 in major keys	ii7 OR vi7 in major keys	V7 in major AND minor keys	rare in classical music; commoner in jazz and pop
Solfege	ti re fa le	re fa le do OR ti re fa la	re fa la do OR la do mi sol	sol ti re fa	do mi sol ti

Seventh Chords in Melodic and Harmonic Contexts

One tip for the easy recognition of seventh chords is to look for them in the context of well-known pieces of music. Once you start listening for them, they are not hard to find.

dd⁷ is often used in movie soundtracks at suspenseful moments. It is heard clearly in mm. 2-3 of J. S. Bach’s famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

dm⁷ is found in many diatonic compositions. The most famous example of it occurs in Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and is usually referred to as the “Tristan chord.” In this instance, the chord doesn’t resolve, setting up the theme of tragedy and unresolved yearning that characterizes the entire opera.

mm⁷ has a less tragic, more easygoing quality than dm7. This is because we typically find it in major keys, either as ii7 or vi7. It appears memorably as vi7 in Debussy’s piano piece La fille aux cheveux de lin (“The Girl With the Flaxen Hair”).

Mm⁷ is present everywhere in Classical music as the dominant seventh chord. Functionally, it has a strong pull towards resolution. Here is an example of how it appears in the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C Major, Op. 2, No. 3.

MM⁷ is rarer in Classical music, but relatively common in jazz and pop. In this pop song from the 1950s, “Mr. Sandman” by Pat Ballard, MM7 is outlined in the first measure of the introduction. You can see some other types of seventh chords here too.

We can also find it in some classical repertoire, including this example from the first of Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies. The opening features two different MM⁷ chords. One has D as its root (do-mi-sol-ti) and the other has G (fa-la-do-mi, a less usual presentation).

Study, play, and sing the seventh chords until you can differentiate between them with ease. You can listen to them on this week’s Spotify playlist, “UI Aural Skills III Seventh Chords” by user “mirandawilson.”**