The V7 Dominant Chord And Its Extensions

The V7 dominant chord is the most versatile of all chords.  There are more alterations that can be made to it than any other chord.  This is the most important chord to master, because it is the strongest tension chord.  This means that the chord wants to resolve (usually to the I). This first article is on V7 dominant chord extensions and voicings.

We'll use the V7 in the key of C (which is G7) for our examples.

Root Position
G7 in root position is:  G B D F

The first thing to do is learn this chord in all inversions:

G B D F

B D F G

D F G B

F G B D

Ok, that's enough boring voicings!  One more thing before we get to the alterations - the extensions.

Extensions - The 9th
First is the 9th (which is A in our example).  We would call this the 2ne if we weren't including the 7th.  Let's look at rootless G9 voicings:

G / B D F A

G / D F A B

G / F A B D

G / A B D F

Extensions - The 11th
Many people mistake this for a suspension, but by calling it the 11th we are implying that the 3rd is still played (we are still implying that the 7th is included, but not necessarily the 9th).  The V11 chord is a challenging chord to voice because of the conflicting 3rd and 11th, which are only a half step apart. Becuase it is rarely truly used in Gospel music, I will not discuss it.

Extensions - The 13th
The 13th is commonly misnamed the 6th, but by naming it the 13th we are implying that the 7th is played (only when we mean to exclude the 7th do we call it a 6th...So many rules ).  Here are some voicings to get you started:

G D F / B E G

G E / B D F

Extensions Combinations
The 9 and 13 are usually combined as in the following rootless examples:

G / F A B E

G / A B E F

G / B E F A

G / E F A B