Dominant seventh chord

In music theory, a dominant seventh chord, or major minor seventh chord,^[a] is a seventh chord, composed of a root, major third, perfect fifth, and minor seventh. Thus it is a major triad together with a minor seventh, denoted by the letter name of the chord root and a superscript "7".^[3] In most ^{[citation needed]} cases, dominant seventh chord are built on the fifth degree of the major scale. An example is the dominant seventh chord built on G, written as G⁷, having pitches G–B–D–F:

It's important to notice that the leading note and the subdominant note combined form a diminished fifth (tritone). The clashing sounds produced by playing these two notes together gives the dominant seventh chord its dissonant quality (i.e, lack of harmony, or its instability).^[4]

Dominant seventh chords are often built on the fifth scale degree (or dominant) of a key. For instance, in the C major scale, G is the fifth note of the scale, and the seventh chord built on G is the dominant seventh chord, G⁷ (shown above). In this chord, F is a minor seventh above G. In Roman numeral analysis, G⁷ would be represented as V⁷ in the key of C major.

Similarly, this chord also occurs on the seventh degree of any natural minor scale (e.g., G7 in A minor).

The dominant seventh is perhaps the most important of the seventh chords. It was the first seventh chord to appear regularly in classical music. The V⁷ chord is found almost as often as the V, the dominant triad,^[5] and typically functions to drive the piece strongly toward a resolution to the tonic of the key.

A dominant seventh chord can be represented by the integer notation {0, 4, 7, 10} relative to the dominant.

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