PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Dominant 7 Chords

I really like "7 chords" and a year ago I wrote a song using them not really knowing what they were.
(Lucky for me BiaB allows the usage of chords that I might not understand.)

https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677/my-sweet-rose-petal

Because of a recent thread here discussing minor chords, I'm beginning to understand a bit of the theory behind how chords are constructed and so, put this table together.

Does this table make sense?

No. The #1 chord of a Dominant C7 is F, not C. C7 is the #5 chord.

You would benefit by learning a little chord theory.

Huh? "The #1 chord of a Dominant 7 is F?" First of all the correct language is "C Dominant 7" to distinguish from Cmaj7. And what is "the #1 chord"?

His chart is about the steps on a scale that make Dominant 7th chords, and his C is exactly right.

Thumper, where there is a slight technical error is on the C#. First of all, I have never seen C# used. It'd be Db. If you really want to use C#, TECHNICALLY the 3rd note is an E# rather than an F. Same sound in your ear, but "scalarly" correct. (Did I just make up a word?)

Remember, from the root, every major scale (also known as Ionian) starting at any note is WWHWWWH. It's whole step whole step half step to get to the 3rd. C# to D# is a whole step. D# to E# (or F sonically) is a whole step. E# to F# is a half step. Very minor thing in that C# is a key most would never use, but to preserve "music language", E# would be correct. I have also never seen the key of A#. That'd be Bb. The scale for dominant 7th is Mixolydian mode, which is WWHWWHW.

Refer to the circle of 5ths. C is at 12 o'clock. Moving right are "sharp" keys, so C, G, D, A, E and B. (5ths.) To the left are "flat keys", so C, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db and Gb. (4ths.) That is what determines notation being sharps or flats. And that's where Mike's suggestion of basic theory enters the game. Rather than think of the root notes of those chords chromatically, think about them in intervals around the wheel of 5ths, so write your chart this way.

The number 1 chord of Thumper's chart certainly looked correct to me. What have I missed?

The same thing has happened in with the G#7, where the 3 should be B#, not C.
Double flats are even more weird.
I have to say that in my mind when playing, I treat B# as C, Cb as B, and so on.
Perhaps I'll eventually get used to the proper spellings.

You guys have my head spinning. I know all four of you know this stuff, so I guess we have blame Thumper? Or perhaps you all are just overthinking the simple question - What are the notes of a Dominate 7th chord and how are they derived from the major scale? And by the way, there is an error in the Table.

Not any more. Moral of the story is don't do stuff like that while watching the Browns game.

Were you going for wanting it to say flatted 7 or that I originally had a Dmaj7 spelled out with the C# instead of the C♮?

As far as what his intention was, once again, take some basic music theory lessons. This kind of thing would be covered within the first 3 or 4 classes. This scale is Mixolydian mode.

There are no shortcuts to learning. You of all people on this forum should know that. You didn't get your advanced degree by looking for shortcuts or doing things the easy way, did you?

Mike Halloran, this is the 2nd data point I'm aware of where you are demonstrating a child-like ignorance of the subject being discussed. The first was where you had the immature pomposity to believe that you know more about RealPlayer than the designers of that software, RealNetworks; despite having no software background whatsoever. And despite given evidence from a well-trained AI bot and Wikipedia, you still maintain that you are smarter than all 3 of these sources. News flash: you can't hold a candle to any one of these reputable sources.
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=102144&Number=776259#Post776259

And now, here we go again. You have supplied a 2nd data point of ineptness. Not only can you not read the simple chord spelling table I posted, your reply makes no sense at all.
"The #1 chord of a Dominant C7 is F, not C. C7 is the #5 chord" what on earth does that mean ???

A clear trend is being displayed that describes who you are; and it should be embarassing to you.

I admit that I picked up music late in life and so I am here to learn; full disclosure: I'm an amateur in music. Nonetheless I try to contribute value on a variety of subjects wherever I can.
You on the other hand seem to be trapped in an adolescent stage of life where pretending is your goal; this is probably driven by inadequacy and jealousy.

Can I ask if you graduated High School? This is a serious question because you would do well to sit at the feet of others in this forum that actually know something. I may be an amateur in music, but sir, you are greener than me.

Why don't you do us all a favor going forward and not respond to any of my posts.

AudioTrack, I think it is correct too. This is from Google.
C7 stands for a dominant seventh chord, spelled C E G Bb. Specifically, it is a major triad (C E G) with an added minor seventh (Bb).

Perhaps I/we should ignore Mr. Halloran's blunders.

Thanks Gordon, I struggle with the same. What I see emerging for me is "two brains".

I'm see much value in the "strict" proper spellings (double sharps, etc.) from a music theory perspective. To the degree that I can grasp this, it will allow much better communication with others and perhaps better composition of my songs . . . "Brain 1"

But when I pick up my bass and jam along to a backing track, or better yet with friends, I'm thinking fretboard geometry/patterns, what sounds good to my ears and having fun . . . "Brain 2"

I wonder if the twain will ever meet
For sure it's a journey.

Mr. Halloran did not blunder, however he could have been less blunt and given more explanation.
Yes C7 is C-E-G-Bb, BUT C7 is the 5th chord in the F scale, (F-G-A-B-C-D-E), thus C7 is the dominant seventh chord in the key of F, i.e. F is the #1 chord. That is what he was talking about.

Steve, since you keep bringing up Realplayer you may be interested in this:

https://nofilmschool.com/2014/08/mit-extract-sound-audio-silent-video-picture-information#:~:text=Researchers%20at%20MIT%2C%20Microsoft%2C%20and%20Adobe%20recently%20joined,sound%20from%20videos%20that%20have%20no%20audio%20whatsoever.

They finally did extract music from a silent film but as you can guess that is not the method Realplayer used. I stand firm that the nomenclature companies are using is not totally what it seems to be. I supposed if they used " we extract the music from a film and then convert it to MP3" (or what ever format they choose) would be to confusing for the general public so they just use convert. It is what it is.

Basic chord theory

The chords are built on scales.

The C Major scale is C D E F G A B (C)

Most chords include the first third and fifth notes, the triad or C E G for C Major

Adding the seventh C E G B gives you a Major 7th chord CM7

The dominant 7th lowers the seventh by a half step making the C7 chord C E G Bb

The C minor scale is C D Eb F G Ab Bb (C)

So the dominant 7th chord uses the major scale triad C E G and adds the minor 7th, Bb

So if you are C minor, looking at the C minor scale, following the formula 1 3 5 (triad) +7, you get C Eb G Bb for Cm7

Bonus fact: the C dominant chord also contains the E diminished triad, E G Bb, sometimes called a tritone.

So your first step, if you don't know this already, is to learn your major and minor scales. Then simply use the formula for the triad and whatever additions are added.

Basic music theory is not difficult, and if you take the time to learn, everything else in music will get a lot easier. The time you will eventually save will far exceed the time you spend learning the theory.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

until you can play without thinking with either brain. Once it's second nature you will move much mo' smootha along that neck.

I don't know if you ever tried what I once suggested about learning the neck. Most people learn to fret from the nut until they hit the body. That has a place for learning scales. But if you learn the neck in a "planar" fashion at an angle. In your case, on a 4 string bass, your first note on an open string on the top string is a G. Find every G on every string all the way to the 15th fret on the 4th string. And work on playing G after G after G as fast as you can. That's how you learn to not play everything based around the 3rd fret. Then work on playing intervals and patterns in every key and in every position on the neck. About 95% of the bass players I ever knew played almost nothing but root notes and in the same place on the neck. So to relate to the dominant 7 that was the topic, using C as the example, play C E G Bb Bb G E C, so walk up the chord and back down. Over and over, faster and faster. Then move your hand up the neck and find the next position and do it again. Also remember that you don't have to play all the notes in the same octave. You can play C3 E2 G2 Bb3 or whatever. That adds flavor.

Also watch THIS VIDEO and pay close attention to Victor Wooten explaining "wrong" notes. Watch it with whichever brain you want, but try to focus on the message. It's great stuff by one of the best out there. It will help you with "flavor". Try hard to use those scales and such and try to not turn into a boring "root notes only" bass player. You are allowed to use 3rds and 5ths. It's in the rules!!

Mario, I will respectfully disagree that Mr. Halloran did not make a blunder and I’ll explain in a bit.

But let’s zoom out. We had just come off of a nice cordial, harmonious, professional and engaging discussion here
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=102870&Number=781164
where you, Gordon and especially Dan participated in a chat about minor chords. Mr. Halloran was (thankfully) nowhere to be found. I, and I’m sure others learned a lot in that discussion.

Fast forward about a day to this thread where I wanted to solidify and extend my new-found chord decomposition knowledge. In this thread my goal was to have folks confirm or deny my table of Dom 7 chords.

My question was simple, clear and to the point: “Does this table make sense?” [Scroll to the top and see it].

The 1st reply was from Mr. Halloran; he said “No. The #1 chord of a Dominant C7 is F, not C. C7 is the #5 chord ” He also said “You would benefit by learning a little chord theory.”

1. Eddie then says “Huh . . . his C is exactly right.”
2. AudioTrack then says “The number 1 chord of Thumper's chart certainly looked correct to me.”
3. I then did a Google “C7 stands for a dominant seventh chord, spelled C E G Bb. Specifically, it is a major triad (C E G) with an added minor seventh (Bb)”
4. Notes then says “So the dominant 7th chord uses the major scale triad C E G and adds the minor 7th, Bb”

Btw, for C7 my table shows C E G Bb which agrees with each of the 4 sources above.

So how is it that my table doesn’t make sense as claimed by Mr. Halloran ???
Once again, is Mr. Hollaran now smarter than Google and the other three?

This is why I use the terms greener, adolescent and blunder. If my table didn’t make sense, others here with credentials would have so stated. Indeed, if you think my table makes no sense, do tell why. I respect people who speak the truth.

FWIW, he is right about something, I would benefit by learning a little chord theory. But equally true is so would he, as well as written English and fact checking.

The solution to this is for him to refrain from blundering up my posts in the future; hopefully he will agree.

As for the “Extract Audio From Silent Videos” article, I read it and watched the video.
I fail to see how that is relevant to the conversion algorithm that RealNetworks uses in RealPlayer.
Are you saying that MIT, Microsoft and Adobe also worked on RealPlayer?

I still want to know what “The number 1 chord" is supposed to mean. And how it could be F. Since we were talking about the C dominant 7th at the time, in my mind the "#1 chord" in that C scale would be C.

So what is " “The number 1 chord"?

And to clear on something, when you need to learn is theory. Overall theory. General theory. Basic theory. That will cover scales, from which you can build chords.

One thing I was indeed taught as it is stated here is that the dominant 7 chord of a scale includes a minor 7th. That has often led to "But this isn't a minor chord." So I always taught it as "a flatted 7."

You can fine tune and tweak the discussion many ways when discussing chords. If you look at a Dm7b5, does it not consist of the same notes as an Fm6? A Dm7b5 is D F Ab and C and an Fm6 is F Ab C and D on top. Depending on context, key, and voicing, and what the bass player is doing, those 4 notes can be either of those chords.

But I still don't know what “The number 1 chord" means. Please teach me! I may have been doing it wrong for the last 67+ years!

I think that what he means is that it's the '1' chord to which a dominant 7 would reasonably, but not necessarily, be expected to resolve.

Two obvious points here:

1) It would have been better if that had been made clear in the first place, rather than a bunch of us trying to decipher a short, perhaps clumsy, sentence.

2) BassThumper was expressly asking for feedback to help him firm up on some of his chord theory, so "you would benefit from a little chord theory" is perhaps not an entirely helpful comment.

I think I know some music theory and I have no idea what Mike meant.

In your chart, I would only suggest that you need to be consistent with flats and sharps and use the enharmonic spellings. This may well lead to E# instead of F, for example, or even a double flat etc.

The way I learned it, to spell a triad, you always skip a letter. So it’s either C# E# G# , or perhaps better, Db F Ab

The standard joke used to be "Just play everything in C to avoid those black keys." And then up comes a dominant 7th and blows that whole theory up. Are the guys in your performing band theory fluent so if you are playing in F they know 4 fingers means "Go to Bb"? It's such a joy to play with theory strong people. I don't want to have to teach basic basics to 70 year old musicians. I once told a bass player "In the second half of that phrase play a 3rd instead of the root." What was heard in the room next was every one of these.

... which also conflicted with the purpose of the table, which was to check BT's understanding of the notes in the chord, not the notes in the scale.
Didn't I make a mistake like that recently somewhere else in these fora

But in C, the dominant is the G7 ... which is also on only white notes, so you're good to go.

BTW, in Britain we have an expression "That's not cricket", referring of course to the game not the insect, and it means "not playing by the spirit of the game".

I understood that the reference to the number 1 chord was referring to the "first chord displayed in the table, i.e. the chord at the top of the list".

I never understood that game. Being an old baseball catcher I can't relate to a game where every pitch has to bounce in the dirt.

Just think of all the white key goodness in the key of C! You get C, Dm, Em, F, G... great key. I asked a pro jazz piano player (Miss you Cecil Ramirez. RIP amigo.) why Db is so popular. His answer was something I was never aware of or even considered. He said he loves Db because most of the keys you play in Db are black keys and they are easier to play by touch because they stand up. NEVER did that even cross my mind. And a few others agreed so I'll accept that as truth.

But then how is it F?

I think few people really understand all the "laws" of Cricket. We do, though, understand enough to enjoy it. A proper test match takes five days, which might be considered excessive, and sometimes I puzzle over how the final score works out.

FWIW, I don't understand American Football. Does the ball even matter?

Oh yes ... and all the black notes are also pentatonic, so what's not to love about it?
Hmm, well, not much tension, so we'll probably not stay there....

Yes, that was a good conversation about minor chords.

Yes your chart made perfect sense. As mentioned previously what is a #1 chord? If you are talking just chords then yes it is the #1 chord. If you are talking about chord progressions and the key signature is F then the C7 is the 5th chord and F is the #1 chord. I believe that was his point, however bluntly posted.

This brings up a couple of problems:
1-Chord numbering leads to these kinds of problems, as indicated via a number of other threads.
2-Asking for theory help on any forum can be problematic. Without a basic understanding of music theory it can lead to total confusion, much like this thread. Although I don't like the title of those dummy books they do contain great information. Maybe this Music theory for Dummies book will help build a solid music theory foundation:
https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Music+Theory+For+Dummies%2C+4th+Edition-p-9781119575528


No, I am saying the terminology of RealPlayer is very misleading.

Thanks for the input Matt.
If you have no idea what Mike meant, imagine where I am on his comment

Your input on the enharmonic spellings is the kind of value-added feedback I was hoping to recieve. It sounds like there is nothing structurally wrong with my table, which is good confirmation for someone like me who is just learning this stuff. So I will ignore Mike's "No" and replace it with a "Yes". But enharmonically/symbolically there are some issues; got it.

Brain 1 says "Fix those enharmonic issues because it will pay dividends later"
Brain 2 says "No problem dude, when you pick up your bass and jam, all is well if you can find those notes on the fretboard"
Maybe (for me) the best table would have both enharmonically correct symbology and "simple" symbology (no E#, Cb, ##, etc.)

Based on your input, Eddie's table with Dan's correction and my table are both enharmonically wrong because both have simple symbology. Can you point me to an enharmonically correct table?

I also notice that Eddie made a neat connection to the circle of fifths that might bring further insights if I do some drilling.

Here is my table again for easy reference.

Matt, correct me if I'm wrong but I was taught technically notes must be inline with the chord and key signature. I know that was a long time ago but in a sharp keys all notes outside the key signature must be sharps; I know that has changed. So the notes should be C#, E#, and G# and not Db, F, or Ab, however I would prefer to see Db, F, or Ab.

Yes Gordon +1 on both of your points. Especially point 2 . . . . I am benefitting from a little chord theory by way of Dan's Music Theory 101 Course which so far has been tuition free
Which is OK because when he needs help on the hyper-geometeric statistical distribution or the finer points of the 2-parameter Weibull, I'm at his beck and call

Make no mistake, I didn't select Dom 7 chord spellings to examine because I'm some kind of "arsonist" that wants to blow things up. I'm just a struggling hobbiest that once wrote a song with such chords, liked the sound and want to play better bass. I need to move beyond root-fifth.

Once again Gordon, you are spot on.
If ever I visit the UK, I'm gonna buy you a spot of tea, a pint of beer and some fish&chips
You understand everything that is going on here.

This is why good written English is important in forum settings . . . unless of course you speak Swheli in which case English is not too important.

With all the activity in this thread I almost missed this one.
I'm sure this is good advice. I'm beyond only the root. With any song I compose I can pretty much do root-5th-octave in time with the drummer across the chord progression.
My next level is to decompose each chord in the progression into it's constituent notes (hence the chord spelling table above) and then using some or all of these notes plus their octaves to build pleasing bass lines that keep time with the drummer and that are not overly repetitive or boring. So constructing bass lines is primarily what this is about.

Eventually I'd like to get so good at this that when I see E7 on the chord sheet for example, that my brain instantly knows E G# B & D, then my fingers know where those notes are (in more than 1 location) and my sense of timing would tell me which note to play and when so that I'm supporting the groove in a way that I'm always ready and predicting the upcoming chord. Finally, there's the matter of notes that will transtion you from one chord to the next. It's a lifetime journey and it's fun. But I have to keep the growth going; right now stagnation or plateuing is not an option.

Can someone please define, in simplest linguistic form, what the #1 chord is with no relativity to a key. #1 of what? The first (#1) note in a scale? If that is the case, the #1 chord in C, being C, means the #1 chord is C.

Mario then said " If you are talking about chord progressions and the key signature is F then the C7 is the 5th chord and F is the #1 chord."

Well, nobody said anything about chord progressions, and the key mentioned in the original post was C. Thus C should be the #1 chord.

Also, it would be a good thing to not use pronouns like "it".

Mario said "As mentioned previously what is a #1 chord? If you are talking just chords then yes it is the #1 chord." What is the IT you are referring back to? If we are talking scales as the base to create chords, we are talking notes at that point, way short of chords having yet be created. This is why I am so confused by the #1 chord thing.

Again, someone please define #1 chord if that term does NOT mean "The chord created with the first note of the scale as the root note." I can't see any way that F would be the #1 anything in the key of C. That comment was is the first reply after the OP and I have been trying since to get a definition of what "the #1 chord" is. Very confusing.

I'll have a go. I think we're probably all, or at least mostly, agreed that Mike's comment was confusing".

BTW, I pretty sure you know the following and have just been confused by Mike's wording.
The use of # to mean 'number' not 'sharp' probably also didn't help.

The Dominant 7 chord is the cornerstone of this.

In any major scale there is just one dominant 7 (V7) chord, it's root is on the fifth note of the scale and it wants strongly to resolve to the root of that scale. If we're in the key of C major, the dominant 7 will be the G7 and the root of the scale will be the CMaj. That V7->I move is very common indeed, precisely because it's such a strong resolution.
One of the consequences of that is that the V7 is also usually often a clue that we're about to resolve and because it's usually V7->I we already know where it's (probably) going.

Mike picked out BassThumper's C7 entry and said that the '#1' (meaning the root of the scale) was F, which is correct for a C7 progression, but BassThumper's chart was showing the notes in the chord not the notes/chords in the scale/progression.

Putting that another way:
BassThumper's table showed C7 contains notes C, E, G, Bb
Mike Halloran says C7 resolves to F.
That's true enough, but is a completely unrelated and confusing statement.

Mike seems sometimes to latch onto something and then fail to see the intended context in which that something was written.

I agree, I still have no idea how or why F became involved.

Because of what Mike said as shown here, "Mike picked out BassThumper's C7 entry and said that the '#1' (meaning the root of the scale) was F, which is correct for a C7 progression, but BassThumper's chart was showing the notes in the chord not the notes/chords in the scale/progression."

I was trying to explain what Mike meant. I apologize for any confusion I may have caused.

Elementary theory. You need to know the basics first.

The chord that has the same name as the key signature is the root.

So in C major, just plain old C is the rood. G7 is dominant and F is subdominant.
I = root
V7 = dominant
IV = subdominant.

I don't think they changed it.

As you go to more advanced theory, this is still not changed, more situations get added.

So if someone publishes something that conflicts with that, I just quit and move on.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

The lesson here is - Just as important as the question one asks, is who one asks. As a result best not to take an introductory course in Music theory from the University of PGM Forum.

True. But I'm totally lost here as to what is desired. Aren't we just making a table for quick reference to see the notes in a dominant 7th chord? Does the key of the imaginary song matter for this table?

For example, let's take just those first two lines that we were given:
C7 = C E G Bb
C#7 = C# F G# B

Well, that second line should technically be
C# E# G# B

If I could in a song, I would rather think of it as
Db F Ab Cb

and truth be told, I would consider that Cb as being B for practical purposes unless I'm writing a score. In an orchestra score, where the part may get transposed, this matters.

Finally, and I probably shouldn't mention this, I've noticed the new trend of many composers and arrangers in jazz and modern music to use no key signature at all. Everything is written in the 'key' of C. Accidentals are shown as needed on all notes. Transposed instruments also read their part in the 'key' of C. It takes some getting used to, and still spawns arguments.

First of all, know that every key has a key signature. In your example of E, immediately I know there are 4 sharps. (Again... WWHWWWH)

To make ANY 7th, think "UP one octave to the next higher root then move down 2 frets." In any key. Flat the 7th note in the scale.

Yes the original was just about the chart. Mike posted the #1 chord for C7 is F and unfortunately I tried to explain this and drove the topic in a different direction. I apologized for that.

I think this thread shows the danger of asking for theory advice from users when the OP has very little theory background. All we as users can do is guess how much the OP knows about theory. Learning is much better when one learns from a book or video and not piece meal from users IMHO. Asking questions about what they are already learning in one thing but trying to learn theory via users is another.

I would much prefer keys in Ab over G# or Bb over A#.

I think I would have a problem with a no key signature song when F, C, G, and D are always sharped. Lots of wasted ink when all one has to do is to make the key signature E. That must be a nightmare when transposing for other than C instruments.

Wasted ink, yes.
Confusing to the eye, yes.
Nightmare transposing, actually no, because depending on the pitch of the transposed instrument, you win some and you lose some. If the original key is Bb and you print a part for me to play on trumpet, my part is in C.

FWIW, I go with keeping the note letter the same, whatever that requires us to do with the accidental symbols (flat, sharp or natural) to achieve that. This conflicts a bit with Mario's system, but I'm not sure that holds firm with, for example, the outliers below. Of course in C, the key signature has no flats or sharps, so maybe we're off the hook in that case. The rule I was given was "you must not have two notes with the same letter within a chord". That would allow A instead of Bbb, but to me that feels wrong. Others may feel differently. I'm open to persuasion.

CMaj - C, E, G
CMaj7 - C, E, G, B
C7 - C, E, G, Bb
Cm7 - C, Eb, G, Bb
CmMaj7 - C, Eb, G, B
Cdim - C, Eb, Gb
Cm7b5 - C, Eb, Gb, Bb
and outliers
Cdim7 - C, Eb, Gb, Bbb
C+ - C, E, G#
C7#5 - C, E, G#, Bb
CMaj7#5 - C, E, G#, B

FWIW this should explain my reasoning and vision for putting together chord spelling tables (and I have more to create).

I built a quick BiaB scratchpad file where the band is vamping on C7 so I can examine musically how this chord is constructed. Inspiration from Eddie allowed me to concieve this idea and limiting the "song" to just one chord prevents other chords (and their transitions) from muddying up the water. My bassline is limited to only the notes that make up the C7 chord and to help those interested to understand what I'm playing (and when) , I played the Bb note more busy than the other notes.

My note progression is:
C E G Bb 4x
C G E Bb 4x

Of course, there are many other permutations that could be played, this is just a starting point on this particular element of my journey.

Observation #1: If I hadn't investigated the Dom 7 chords and built my table, I would never have been aware of the Bb in this chord.
Observation #2: I really like the sound of the Bb in this context, it seems to want to resolve back to the C in a musically satisfying way.
Observation #3: In my humble opinion, every music school, music teacher and music student should have BiaB in their toolbox; what a wonderful practice and learning tool.

This is all really good stuff, I'm slowing unpacking and understanding how music works.
Thanks to all that have positively contributed to this and other threads here.

C7 Scratchpad

I think the comment about the number one chord was thinking that the 1, 3, 5, and 7 above the columns was referring to chords for some reason, rather than scale tones which is what I and most others assumed (correctly) is what it was. The 7 should be b7 as pointed out by at least one post.

I think there was general confusion about what the chart was attempting to show and at least one poster found a way to say it was wrong. That is all.

In the Chart for C7 he lists the 1, 3, 5, b7 notes under those column headings. Halloran assuming 1 meant the 1 chord for which C7 is the Dom 7th I guess? Not sure how or why he went there but he did. No big deal what he stated is true, but has nothing to do with the table presented. As far as sharps and flats, it all depends on the context for C# or Db etc. as for me as a guitar player, doesn't really matter what you call it, I know where it is and how it fits.

Steve if you learn to play the notes to the C7 chord without using open strings you have a pattern that you can use for all other dom7 chords.
Just move the pattern up one fret and you have the C#7 covered. Up another fret and there is the D7. etc!

Sounds like you are having fun.

Ponder this, as you have described... You are jamming over a C mixolydian appegio in the Key of F. Try adding that F to your jam. It should fit in well and you may appreciate Mikes early comment.

Yep, I know this.
This is one reason that I built my table the way I did . . . everything is incremented by a half-step.
And as you point out, the fretboard geometry should similarly increment (minus the open strings as you point out)

Fun is right. But I'd rather not add in any "extraneous" notes at this time; I need to first solidify the lessons I'm learning first.
And then I'll move on to the other chord categories, dim, dim7, aug, etc. and see what golden nuggets await me there.
Got to walk before I run

It may be my old eyes, but these 2 seem to have typos...

Oops ... Correcting.

C dim is C, Eb, Gb, no? You have Bb.

Yes, I registered that and did a second correction. You don't want to know how many Bb->Eb corrections I did even before the original post. I know where the fingers go ... actually naming the notes appears to be a bigger challenge ... Doh!

Thank Eddie.

My brain works far faster than my fingers and I do a lot of dyslexic typing. I had even worse eyes before the cataracts were removed. I can't type. At all. I type 25 words and have to correct 8 of them.

Eddie, in that case, you'll get a laugh out of Mario's current signature

I saw that and laughed out loud!

Me too. Sadly I'm one of the many older people who are now forbidden grapefruit. I like them and I miss them!

This is my understanding of the diminished chord spellings.

The notes are correct but I think that that there are a couple of spellings that should change.

Fdim would be F Ab Cb
A#dim would be A# C# E

Gordon is correct about the spellings.

Yeah, this is that enharmonic thing again.
I'm not sure if there is an absolute crisp solution that fully answers this.

This image is from pianochord.org but I'm not sure that even this is the "truth" . . .

If I may - you are playing the music not writting it - right? So root, minor third and flattened fifth is all you need to know to play a dim chord in any key.

Up above I gave you a quick guideline you can use when unsure: skip a letter. So if you start with A#, the next note has to be some form of C (not B, and not D). Then some form of E (not D, not F). Make sense? As far as I know, this trick always works, although it can lead you into situations of double flats or double sharps. Pick your poison.

And I don't remember if anyone above mentioned another guideline, but I really detest mixing sharps and flats in the same chord spelling. For example, you would not want to write something like C, Eb, F# (though that example also fails the 'skip a letter' test).

Does that help? If you get stuck, you can always throw in Mike's wildcard F.

I reckon rule 1 is to not get too hung up about it.

I think rule 2 is probably that sometimes things are debatable. MarioD said that the 'old way' he used was that a chord should have the same #/b symbols as the scale it's in, which would mean in his rules my + or #5 should be a b6, but to me the chord is still a triad, so it should contain the 5 of whatever persuasion.

For me the most important thing is about which notes in the chord I should raise or lower by a semitone (or two in the case of a fully diminished). Generally when one does that the notes do keep the same #/b symbol as the scale.

There's a fairly full explanation on the Hear & Play website, which follows the "same #/b" rule, but I think it doesn't mention ... oh, yes it does and get this ...
In one lesson it has:
and in another it has

In truth, I personally think the contradiction is probably unavoidable. It's a useful website, though mostly piano-oriented. It has 7 pages of explanation on this, which definitely indicates that it isn't always obvious: https://www.hearandplay.com/main/proper-spelling-of-chords

Remember my rule 1.

Oh, here we go. We're back to talking about the diagram entries as if these are chords in a key signature. Very well.

Nothing is absolute about this stuff.

When writing for orchestra or big band, I may very well write notes with sharps in a flatted key signature. Why? Well, I don't want to be changing the key signature all the time, but a certain section (even a few bars) may have a different tonal center (example: we are humming along in Eb, but for four bars, it apparently modulates to A. Is it worth changing the key signature for four bars? I think No). The players will understand as long as you're consistent.

Another general rule is to write sharps if it's an ascending line, flats if it's a descending line. But I break that rule all the time. Pick your poison: you'll often not be able to comply with every guideline out there.

Thank you Dan, you are right.

My goals for these tables are to be valuable tools for rapidly developing better bass lines; and they have already achieved that goal. Being absolutely musically "correct" as would be required by an orchestra conductor for example is not my primary goal. With any tool, it should be useful to the user. I do want them to be as correct as possible but only to the extent that they remain useful tools.

Put another way, I'd rather be a happy, productive, semi-ignorant, non-music scholar who can have fun learning new songs using imperfect tools rather than being frustrated and roadblocked because I can't understand the tools I've created. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be a music scholar but that's simply out of reach.

All that said, I defer to Gordon and Matt who obviously know much more than me in this area and so I made the changes. "Cb" shouldn't slow me down, I know that's equivalent to "B". But double sharps and double flats is another story entirely.

All is well, learning and stretching are good things

Your welcome!

A beer sounds just fine after wading through this thread.

Thump, if you are learning, why not learn it right? A B is also a Cb depending on the key. Embrace that.

I personally don't like key signature changes for just a few bars. I would rather just read the accidentals, especially if I am sight reading something and didn't even get the time to look it over enough to see those key changes. But, as I had said before, for me it doesn't really make much difference if you write Cb I still know where it is and what it is even if it is not normally written that way.

I too can handle Cb, it's the double sharps and douple flats that explode my head.

Also, FWIW, I don't read sheet music, I either play by ear or from chord sheets. And I enter chords into BiaB. Obviously my music theory is weak but growing. My understanding is that the chord spelling tables I'm putting together are completely independent of any key(s) the song may be in. In other words, these tables work for all keys. They are simply intended to show how chords are constructed (which is turning out to be valuable to me in at least 2 ways).

I'm for whatever makes the chart easier to sightread, and accidentals don't bother me one bit.

Double sharps and double flats will take a microsecond to register when sightreading, but the second time around they will be fine.

Any difficult piece of music will find me in the woodshed.

If the rhythm is tricky, I'll count it off in rhythm using 1 E & A 2 E & A … or 1 A LY … and so on. My first band director taught me that, and his words are ringing in my head today, “If you can say it, you can play it.”

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

+1
I'm (albeit slowly) reaching this position.
Nobody listens to a song for enjoyment and asks "Does his chord spelling tables meet my approval?"
Or says "If this guy doesn't know how to read sheet music I'm not gonna like his songs."

That said, correct music notation is very important (even crucial) in some contexts but it isn't the end all and be all.

Just my 2 cents.