The augmented seventh chord, or seventh augmented fifth chord, or seventh sharp five chord is a

seventh chord A seventh chord is a chord consisting of a triad plus a note forming an interval of a seventh above the chord's root. When not otherwise specified, a "seventh chord" usually means a dominant seventh chord: a major triad together with a mi ...

composed of a

root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...

major third In classical music, a third is a Interval (music), musical interval encompassing three staff positions (see Interval (music)#Number, Interval number for more details), and the major third () is a third spanning four semitones.Allen Forte, ...

augmented fifth In classical music from Western culture, an augmented fifth () is an interval produced by widening a perfect fifth by a chromatic semitone.Benward & Saker (2003). ''Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. I'', p.54. . For instance, the interval f ...

, and

minor seventh In music theory, a minor seventh is one of two musical intervals that span seven staff positions. It is ''minor'' because it is the smaller of the two sevenths, spanning ten semitones. The major seventh spans eleven. For example, the interval fr ...

(1, 3, 5, 7).Garner, Robert (2007). ''Mel Bay Presents Essential Music Theory for Electric Bass'', p. 69. . It can be viewed as an

augmented triad Augment or augmentation may refer to: Language * Augment (Indo-European), a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages *Augment (Bantu languages), a morpheme that is prefixed to the noun class prefix of nouns ...

with a minor seventh. When using popular-music symbols, it is denoted by +⁷, aug⁷, or ⁷⁵. For example, the augmented seventh chord built on C, written as C+⁷, has pitches C–E–G–B: : The chord can be represented by the

integer notation In music, a pitch class (p.c. or pc) is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart; for example, the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves. "The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs, in whatever octave posit ...

Use

The root is the only optional note in an augmented seventh chord, the fifth being required because it is raised. This alteration is useful in the major mode because the raised 5th creates a

leading tone In music theory, a leading-tone (also called a subsemitone, and a leading-note in the UK) is a note or pitch which resolves or "leads" to a note one semitone higher or lower, being a lower and upper leading-tone, respectively. Typically, ''the ...

to the 3rd of the tonic triad. See also dominant. In

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

parlance, the term ''augmented seventh chord'' is sometimes confusingly and erroneously used to refer to the so-called "

Hendrix chord In music, the dominant 79 chord ("dominant seven sharp nine" or "dominant seven sharp ninth") is a chord built by combining a dominant seventh, which includes a major third above the root, with an augmented second, which is the same pitch, albe ...

", a 79 chord which contains the interval of an augmented ninth but not an augmented fifth. The augmented minor seventh chord may be considered an altered

dominant seventh In music theory, a dominant seventh chord, or major minor seventh chord, is a seventh chord, usually built on the fifth degree of the major scale, and composed of a root, major third, perfect fifth, and minor seventh. Thus it is a major triad t ...

and may use the

whole tone scale In music, a whole-tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbors by the interval of a whole tone. In twelve-tone equal temperament, there are only two complementary whole-tone scales, both six-note or '' hexatonic' ...

, as may the

dominant seventh flat five chord In music theory, the dominant seventh flat five chord is a seventh chord composed of a root note, together with a major third, a diminished fifth, and a minor seventh above the root (1, 3, 5 and 7). For example, the dominant seventh flat five chord ...

. See

chord-scale system The chord-scale system is a method of matching, from a list of possible chords, a list of possible scales.Mervyn Cooke, David Horn (2003). '' The Cambridge companion to jazz'', p.266. . The system has been widely used since the 1970s and is "gen ...

. The augmented seventh chord normally resolves to the chord a perfect fifth below.Bay, William (1994). ''Mel Bay Complete Jazz Sax Book'', p. 64. . Thus, G aug⁷ resolves to a C major or minor chord, for example. :

Augmented seventh chord table

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Augmented Seventh Chord Seventh chords