Because the viiº chord is diminished, its flatted fifth can be too dissonant or unstable. In many styles of music, use of the viiº chord from the major key is rare. Other times it moves to the IV chord: C-B♭-F-C How the♭VII Chord Works Often, the ♭VII chord moves back to the I chord: C-B♭-C, or F-B♭-C The ♭VII chord appears in chord progressions in many ways. In the key of C major, a ♭VII chord would be B♭ (B♭-D-F) or B♭7 (B♭-D-F-A♭) borrowed from the parallel minor scale of C minor. And, sometimes, it causes heated debates.

It is quite common, but it creates a lot of confusion and is easy to analyze incorrectly.

While all of the borrowed chord possibilities do get used (including the i, iiº and v), most often you will encounter the minor iv, ♭III, ♭VI, and ♭VII chords borrowed from the parallel minor key. For example, in our first voicing below there's a major-3rd between the Eb and G, but the rest of the intervals are perfect 4ths.The last common borrowed chord we will discuss in this lesson block is the ♭VII chord (“flat seven chord”). Using the right diatonic notes is what matters most, moreso than strict adherence to the mathematical interval structure. Starting from the main chord tones on top and extending the chord as I go down just works better for me.Īlso, don't get confused if sometimes we stray slightly from strict fourth intervals. Pro tip: I find it much easier to think about building fourth voicings from the top down, rather than from the bottom up, though that's not a hard and fast rule. Keep with it, the results are worth the effort. This can be a little weird, especially if you have a long history of playing classical music.

These voicings have 5 notes and are shown in 4 different inversions. My examples below use the following sequence of notes in 4th intervals to build voicings: 11-7-3-5-1. We can create a more modern jazz sound by using the same notes, but stacked in 4ths instead. Up to this point our voicings have been based around minor chords built by stacking 3rds (1,3,5,7,9,11), and related inversions.

B flat minor 7 chord piano