Basic Beginner Guitar Chord – Learn to Play C Major 7

The C Major 7 Guitar Chord (also known as C Major Seventh, CMaj7) is a beautiful, dreamy sounding chord. It is often used in Jazz Guitar.  It is a basic beginner chord and very easy to play.  There are several different ways to play this chord, but this lesson will demonstrate the easiest way.

The C Major 7 Chord is found by locating the 1(root note), 3 , 5  and 7 positions (C, E, G and B) of the C Major Scale: C D E F G A B C.  You are basically playing a C Major Chord and simply lifting your first finger off the C Note of the 2nd string first fret. That string now becomes open, so you are playing a B note.  The chord chart below demonstrates how to play the CMaj7 Chord.

Here is a key that will help you read the chart:

Chord Playing Tip: Be sure that you are pressing down on the strings hard enough. You should play each string one at a time to make sure you have a nice clean sound. If any of the strings buzz or sound muted, then something is not right.

The video below will further demonstrate how to correctly play the CMaj7 Chord. Enjoy!