Chord & FretA7 · Ukulele
Breathe in right now. Hold it. ...Feel your body asking for the second half? A7 is a song breathing like that — first half only. Press play down there.
Listen first
What you just heard
Why does it sound unfinished? Inside A7, two notes are at odds: C# and G. Now listen to the arpeggio, one note at a time 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 ukulele, the high reentrant G makes every shape light — and with four strings, every note is exposed. So grab the first position below — 3 open strings to help you; it's also the easiest one to play. Now the experiment that explains this chord better than any explanation: play A7, hold it for one breath, 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
The other positions earn their keep in blues and jazz, where this chord is practically the official language; learn them one at a time.
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 · try it in Chord & Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · see 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. Typically, not a rule.
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, a second dominant hiding three whole steps away, the one arrangers reach for when they want to arrive at the same place by a prettier road.
A Mixolydian
4 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 · use 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. Free to start, no card needed.