The nice thing about seventh chords is that they have just four notes … which means they’re as easy to play as our old friends, the basic triads. And while you’ll sometimes see different types of seventh chords in music, the most common one is definitely the dominant seventh chord.

For some reason, notes “1-3-5-b7” just sound good together. Like peanut butter and jelly, the major chord and the minor-seventh note combine to create something great. That one extra note adds enough tension to make things sound more interesting and fun.

To get a feel for how the dominant-seventh chord is used in a song, try playing the next piece. Again, it’s that classic melody “London Bridge”—where most of the chords are basic major and minor triads. But notice how the G chord is (an inverted)dominant G7, which adds extra flavor. In fact, I’d even say it sounds positively delicious.