G7 Guitar Chord - 9 Ways To Play This Chord - National Guitar Academy (2024)

Want to learn the G7 guitar chord? We’re going to show you 7 essential ways to play the G7 guitar chord.

In this free guitar lesson you will learn:

• 9 must-know ways to play the G7 guitar chord which will make you sound amazing.
• 4 guitar chord hacks which boost your progress.
• The number 1 secret to learning guitar chords quickly.
• 3 quick & easy tips which will help you master barre chords.

Over 100,000 guitar-learners get our world-class guitar tips & tutorials sent straight to their inbox: Click here to join them

The two most common ways to play a G7 guitar chord are:

• An open G7 guitar chord.
• G7 guitar chord (E7 barre shape).

Let’s learn them!

Open G7 Guitar Chord

In the guitar world, we refer to this as the ‘open G7 guitar chord’ because it uses open strings.

• Place your 3rd finger on the 3rd fret of the low E string (6th string).
• Place your 2nd finger on the 2nd fret of the A string (5th string).
• Place your 1st finger on the 1st fret of the high E string (1st string).

1 Finger G7 Guitar Chord

If you find this guitar chord too hard, learn this voicing:

• Place your 1st finger on the 1st fret of the high E string (1st string).
• Strum from the D string (4th string).

To learn easier voicings of the G chord, go here:4 Easy Ways To Play The G Chord On Guitar

G7 Guitar Chord (E7 Barre Shape)

We refer to this as chord as the ‘E7 barre shape’ because the core part of this chord is based on an E7 chord.

Here’s an E7 chord:

To learn this chord, go here:4 Easy Ways To Play The E Chord On Guitar

Here’s a G7 guitar chord (E7 barre shape).

Can you see how the shape of an open E7 chord is being used in this barre chord?

To play this chord:

• Barre your first finger over all of the strings on the 3rd fret.
• Place your 3rd finger on the 5th fret of the A string (5th string).
• Place your 2nd finger on the 4th fret of the G string (3rd string).
• Strum all the strings.

G7 Guitar Chord (E7 Shape – 3 Finger Version)

If you find this chord too difficult, play this one:

• Place your 1st finger on the 3rd fret of the low E string (6th string).
• Place your 2nd finger on the 3rd fret of the D string (4th string).
• Place your 3rd finger on the 4th finger of the G string (3rd string).

This chord is great for blues and roots music.

Barre Chord Tips!

Barre chords are tricky, there’s no hiding that. Here are 3 quick & easy tips from Mike which will help you master barre chords:

What is a G7 guitar chord?

A G7 guitar chord is basically aG chordwith an F note added to it.

Here are all of the notes in a G chord:

• Root – G
• 3rd – B
• 5th – D

Here are all of the notes in a G7 chord:

• Root – G
• 3rd – B
• 5th – D
• Flattened 7th – D

Notice how both chords share the same root, 3rd and 5th notes. It’s the ‘F note’ which turns this chord into a dominant 7th.

To learn more about chord construction, go here:Guitar Theory: A 5 Step Guide

Let’s learn some more voicings of this chord!

Bonus Tip!

A G7 guitar chord can be referred toin a variety of different ways. Here are a few examples:

• G7
• G7 guitar chord
• G Dominant 7th

As we’re talking about how the G7 chord can be played on guitar, in today’s lesson we’re going to refer to this chord as the ‘G7 guitar chord’.

G7 Guitar Chord (D7 Shape)

This G7 guitar chord is based on a regular ‘D7 guitar chord’.

Here’s the D7 chord:

Here’s a G7 guitar chord (D7 shape).

Can you see how the shape of the D7 chord is being used in the G7 chord?

All we’ve done is:

• Move the chord shape up to the 5th fret.
• Adapt the fingering.

This chord is great for funk and soul music.

G7 Guitar Chord (C7 Shape)

In the guitar world, we refer to this chord G7 guitar chord as the ‘C7 shape’ because it uses the EXACT same shape as a regular C7 chord.

Here’s a C7:

Learn to play this chord here: C7 Guitar Chord

To play a G7 guitar chord, you must move this shape to the 10th fret.

Here’s a chord box for reference:

G7 Guitar Chord (C7 Shape 3 Finger Version)

If you find this chord too difficult, play this one instead:

• Place your 2nd finger on the 10th fret of the A string (5th string).
• Place your 1st finger on the 9th fret of the D string (4th string).
• Place your 3rd finger on the 10th fret of the G string (3rd string).

To play this chord, you must avoid playing the top 3 strings. Learn to do this here: How To Skip Strings While Strumming

Why does this work?

This works because the C7 shape, is moveable. This means that you can move this chord shape around the fret board to play the chord in a different key.

This concept comes from the CAGED guitar system.

To learn more about this, go here: CAGED Guitar System: How To Master Chords

G7 Guitar Chord (A7 Shape)

This G7 guitar chord is based on the open A7 chord.

Here’s the A7 chord:

To learn this chord in more detail, go here: A7 Guitar Chord

Here’s the G7 guitar chord (A7 shape).

All we’ve done here is:

• Add a barre to the 10th fret of the A string. (5th string.)
• Change your fingering.

Notice how the physical shape of the A7 guitar chord is still used in this guitar chord.

G7 Guitar Chord (1 FingerBarre Shape)

If you find that barring a whole chord is too difficult, but playing an open chord is easy. Try playing this chord.

It’s perfect for enhancing your dexterity and technique.

• Barre your first finger over the D (4th string), G (3rd string), B (2nd string) and E string (1st string) on the 12th fret.
• Strum from the D string (4th string).

How do I practice chords?

Here are 4 essential tips which will help you master the G7 guitar chord. These methods are tried and tested in thousands of hours of real world guitar lessons.

We guarantee that your chords will sound amazing if you follow these steps.

1) Squeeze Your Fretting Hand After You’ve Learned A Chord Correctly

This engages your muscle memory and teaches you to remember the chord. However, it’s vital that you can play the chord correctly BEFORE you squeeze your fretting hand.

If you squeeze your hand when the chord is incorrect, you will be teaching yourself to remember the incorrect chord.

How do I know if the chord is right?

Here are 3 things to watch out for when you’re learning guitar chords.

• Make sure your fingers are in the right place. (Always follow the chord box for reference!)
• Make sure each note is clear. You don’t want ANY dead notes in a guitar chord (unless they’re marked ‘x’).
• Make sure that you don’t feel any pain. Your hands must be relaxed.

2) Try And Play The Chord Without Looking At The Fretboard

The best way to practice guitar chords is to try and play each chord without looking at the fret board.

Here are 7 simple-steps which you can follow which will help you master guitar chords:

1. Pick one G7 guitar chord to learn.
2. Learn that G7 guitar chord.
3. Squeeze your fretting hand 5 times. (After you’ve played the chord correctly!)
4. Take your hand off of the fret board.
5. Look away. (The fret board MUST be out of sight.)
6. Play your guitar chord without looking.
7. Check if you got it right!

If the chord is right, fantastic. Try the same method with another G7 guitar chord.

If you didn’t, don’t worry. Just repeat steps 1 – 7 again.

3)Practice Moving Between Each G7 Guitar Chord

Once you’ve learned all of the G7 guitar chords, practice moving between each one.

The best way to do this is to practice each chord from the lowest point of the fret board, and ascend to the highest point.

You would play each G7 guitar chord in this order:

• 1 finger G7 guitar chord.
• Open position G7 guitar chord.
• G7 guitar chord (E7 shape, 3 finger version).
• G7 guitar chord (E7 shape).
• G7 guitar chord (D7 shape).
• G7 guitar chord (C7 shape).
• G7 guitar chord (C7 shape, 3 finger version).
• G7 guitar chord (1 finger barre shape).
• G7 guitar chord (A7 barre shape).

Once you’ve mastered this, practice going from the highest G7 guitar chord and descend down to the lowest.

4) Use The G7 Guitar Chord In A Musical Situation

The quickest way to learnthe G7 guitar chord is to use it in a musical situation.

To do this, learn some songs which use the G7 guitar chord. Here are 3 of our favourites.

1) G Blues

The G7 guitar chord is used frequently in a G blues. Here’s the chord progression for a G blues:

To learn more blues guitar, go here: Blues Guitar Lessons For Beginners – 4 Ways To Sound Awesome Quickly

2) ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon

This song was written by John Lennon in 1971 and was one of the biggest selling songs of his career.

Even though the G7 chord isn’t featured heavily in this song, it does pop up in the verse. You can listen to this song here on Spotify.

Learn to play this song in more detail here: ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon

3) ‘More Than Words’ by Extreme

This track was THE ballad of the 1990s. Ironically, Extreme were originally a heavy rock band, however this ballad is put them on the map.

To learn this song, go here:‘More Than Words’ by Extreme