Take the Major 7th tone and flat it by moving it down a half step. It’s a brighter sounding minor tonality, compared to the common relative minor Aeolian mode. The dorian mode is characterized by a flat-3 and flat-7. This is one half step lower than the interval of the perfect fifth, three and a half steps above the root, making the fifth flat. The flatted fifth describes an interval of three whole steps between the root of the chord and the fifth, also is called the tritone, when both notes are played at the same time. The lowering (by a half-step) of the fifth degree of a chord a device especially associated with early bebop. Therefore a flat 7th means one note lower than the 7th. To flat a note means to lower it by one note (meaning one fret lower). The 7th is the seventh note of the major scale. When strumming a G7, listen for these four notes that are blended together to form the full chord: G, B, D and F.

The G7 chord is comprised of the same three chords that make up the G major chord (G, B, and D), plus the addition of a seventh interval – the F note. The name comes from the fact that the flat seventh occurs naturally in the scale built upon the root when it functions as the dominant (i.e., the fifth degree) of some major diatonic scale.

People use a bit different labelings sometimes, but usually when people say “flat”, they are talking about scale degrees that are a minor (and when it comes to bV and bI, a diminished) interval away from the tonic. “Flat six” chord is simply a chord built on the minor 6th scale degree. Dominant 7th fits in the scale that has the root of the given chord as the dominant (5th scale degree) of that scale. Why is the 7th flattened?īecause you’re forgetting about the major 7th chord, which is the 7th chord which fits in the scale of the root note of that chord. 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.

Movable minor 7th flatted fifth