Chord & FretA7 · Cavaquinho
A doorbell ringing with nobody answering. A phone buzzing face-down on the table. Some things only exist to be resolved — A7 is their musical version. Press play down there and feel the unfinished business.
Listen first
What you just heard
Why does it sound unfinished? Inside A7, two notes are arguing: C# and G. Go back to the audio and catch the arpeggio note by note and catch the second and the last note — the distance between them is the tritone, the tensest interval tonal music knows. A and E keep the house standing while those two argue inside it. And an argument, you know, demands a resolution.
Now it's your hands' turn
On the cavaquinho, four steel strings tuned D–G–B–D pack the chord into a small, bright space — every finger counts. So grab the first position below; the position marked with ⭐ is the easiest to play. Now the experiment that explains this chord better than any explanation: play A7, let it ring a moment, then play D. Felt the door close? Do it again. That relief is the reason this chord exists.
1 more shape of this chord on the neck
Part of 218,399 voicings and inversions in Chord & Fret Pro — see and play every one.
Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · open in Chord & Fret
Save the positions below for when the blues calls: over there, this chord is the house language.
Left-handed? Mirror's right here
What is A7?
A7: A Major with Seventh. The notes are A, C#, E, G (fixed-do: La, Do#, Mi, Sol) — the degrees 1–3–5–b7.
Where this chord lives
Its job is fixed: A7 is a dominant, and dominants live as VII7 in B minor, V7 in D major. Translation: wherever it shows up, the music is about to move. A chart full of 7th chords is a song that won't sit still.
Transpose & Capo — Need it in another key? Move the whole chart and find the easiest capo · use it in Chord & Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · try it in Chord & Fret
Where it tends to go
Treating A7 as the home chord (I) of its key, it tends to go toward the pre-dominant (Bm / D) or the dominant (E / G#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. It's a tendency, not a law.
When you want to go further
For soloing, A Mixolydian (A B C# D E F# G · 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7: the major scale with a lowered seventh — the blues accent); A Lydian dominant (A B C# D# E F# G · 1 2 3 #4 5 6 b7: a mixolydian with a raised fourth: the dominant in formalwear) cover the whole chord. And look at the first swap on the list below: that's the famous tritone substitution, the twin dominant living three whole steps from here, the one arrangers reach for when they want to arrive at the same place by a prettier road.
A Mixolydian
3 more scale positions on the neck
Chord & Fret Pro maps 35,178 mapped scale shapes — hear and play them all.
The same A Mixolydian in its main shapes along the neck — pick whichever position sits under your hand. The rings mark the guide notes (the 3rd and 7th) that carry this chord's color.
Scale — The whole scale on the neck — in boxes or three notes per string, with an exercise and a tempo ramp · see it in Chord & Fret
Improvising in context
To improvise over A7 as home, the A Mixolydian scale covers it whole — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (E) pulls back, the leading tone Ab is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
- Eb7Eb7Eb7Eb7 — Tritone substitution (shared 3rd–7th tritone)
- Em7Em7Em7Em7 — Forms a II–V: precede with this ii
- Bbdim7 — Passing diminished (ascending)
Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · see it in Chord & Fret
You already know how this sentence ends. The period after A7 is called D — go there and close it with your own fingers.
Every shape of A7 lives in Chord & Fret Pro — 4 instruments, 16 tunings, 41 chord types and 57 scales, in every key. Start free. Unlock everything with Pro. Plays offline. Works offline, no account needed.