Better Rhythm Guitar - Using 3rds and 7ths

Recently we discussed note values and how we could benefit from understanding them better. It will take a long time and lots of practice to really ingrain them into your brain, but whilst you do that, I thought it would be a good idea to look at some chord harmony and what we can do with it.

It would take an entirely separate lesson to fully explain chord theory… and I’m not so sure any one person could completely cover it! Today we will break down the most basic of 7th chords and take it from there!

Chord Formulas

Many of you may know that conventional harmony is built of intervals of 3rds. For example, the first, third and fifth notes of the C Major scale make a C Major chord (also referred to as the root, third and fifth) - see the table below for a visual representation.

C	D	E	F	G	A	B
1	2	3	4	5	6	7

Now you should be able to see how the chords are created by using third intervals. Highlighted in blue is the next chord that would be Dm and so on. When we are using 7th chords, we simply add another third interval on top - in this case, Cmaj7 would have the notes C, E, G and B. The formula for this would now be R (root) 3 5 7 - we have just added an extra note on the end. 

Here is a table with the most common seventh chords - these formulas should be applied to the major scale:

Major 7th	R 3 5 7
Minor 7th	R ♭3 5 7
Dominant 7th	R 3 5 ♭7
m7♭5 (half-diminished)	R ♭3 ♭5 ♭7
Diminished 7th	R ♭3 ♭5 ♭♭7

In the context of a large ensemble, you may have to adjust your chord voicings to sit nicely with the other instruments - this could also be influenced by the genre of music. It is not really necessary to play a root note as a guitar player in many scenarios - the same is true for the 5th - it doesn't provide any context to the chord (think about how power chords have no tonality of their own). 

Let us break each part of a chord down further in the next table.

R root	Usually played by a bass player, or the left hand of a piano instrument. Not that important for a guitarist.
3 third	Provides context in terms of major or minor tonality - possibly the most important note in the chord.
5 fifth	Fills out the sound but doesn’t really provide much musical value unless it is sharp or flat.
7 seventh	Determines the nature of the seventh chord and can influence further extensions. Can drastically change the ‘flavor’ of a chord.

As you can probably tell from this table, and the title of the blog post too, the 3rd and 7th intervals are the most important, and that is what we should be focusing on if we want clean, concise and effective rhythm guitar chops. 

In Cmaj7 we have the notes C, E, G and B - if we play just two notes (E and B, 3rd and 7th) and the other instruments are taking care of the rest of the chord, then we are in luck. Your choices will cut through, you will be heard and are in less danger of overplaying. 

Putting This Into Practice

You can use this concept of playing the 3rds and 7ths in pretty much any genre - today we are going to look at this in a funk context. Remember, to get that funky sound you need to utilize 16th notes and some muting, but that is for another time. 

In Fig. 1 you will see three chords (Am, Dm and G7) played in their most common voicing. I have highlighted the specific notes in green.

Here is a table detailing the notes in each chord. Again, the relevant chord tones have been highlighted in green.

Am7	A	C	E	G
Dm7	D	F	A	C
G7	G	B	D	F

Some of these notes are shared, and others are very close to each other. They may not always be the case horizontally across the strings, but moving vertically between strings opens up the fretboard significantly. Due to the way that the guitar is constructed, and how the notes are laid out on the fretboard, you can easily move these ideas around the neck. It is also possible to have the 3rd higher than the 7th, as you will see with some of the examples in Fig. 2. 

Other ways you could put this into practice would be to play over a static chord progression, being able to vamp over an Am chord for five minutes is tricky to do without becoming stale, this can certainly help. You could also challenge yourself to play a popular song by only using this method. 

After some time, and a lot of practice, you should be able to do this quite quickly. You will definitely need a strong working knowledge of the notes on the fretboard, though!

Other Uses

Sometimes even the most battle hardened jazz guitar player can be thrown off by a chord chart that is absurdly difficult. Some have an innate skill here, but for us mere mortals, who can identify the barebones harmony with little difficulty, we can use these skills to navigate all but the hardest of jazz tunes. That is not to say it would be the best course of action, but you would survive at least!

To further prove an earlier point that this idea is borne of a need to be heard amongst a large ensemble, consider big band music.The typical big band would have between 12 and 30 players, sometimes even more, and is comprised of many different instruments. 

Check out this video:

Count Basie - Corner Pocket

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTcmPGdDecw

Freddie Green was the mastermind behind the guitar work for many of Count Basie’s recordings. He would often use two or three note voicings, and sometimes was even known to use one note to represent the chord. It sounds crazy, but it definitely works! Remember that the guitar is there to fill in a space sonically and occupy a specific part of the frequency range, not to play the full chord. 

Final Thoughts

As useful as it might be to have the skill in your arsenal, the real challenge comes from being able to use it at will, and combining it with any other rhythmic concepts that you know. You may come across some additional methods yourself, may pick them up from friends or teachers. However, I find it extremely useful to learn songs in different genres. I don’t mean Chicago blues and Louisiana blues, but rather Chicago blues to ska and beyond.

As you should know, guitar riffs are nearly always based around established chords - this could be from pop songs to death metal. Using this method, but perhaps with other notes of a chord or even a scale is a great way to achieve this. Hair-metal from the 1980s especially likes to use 4ths from the parent scale for embellishment. 

In the examples given above, I have not given any specific rhythmic instruction. It is written in whole notes and I think this is a great place to start rhythmically, just to get the concept under your fingers, and allow you the space to try and incorporate other harmonic ideas. You do not have to jump straight in! 

If you have any questions about expanding your rhythmic possibilities, improving your note choices or just being a better rhythm guitarist altogether, get in touch with one of the team at The American Guitar Academy - they will definitely help you out.