Dominant seventh chord

In music theory, a dominant seventh chord, or major minor seventh chord, is a seventh chord composed of a root, major third, perfect fifth, and minor seventh. Thus it is a major triad together with a minor seventh, denoted by the letter name of the chord root and a superscript '7'. An example is the dominant seventh chord built on G, written as G7, having pitches G–B–D–F:... the demand of the V7 for resolution is, to our ears, almost inescapably compelling. The dominant seventh is, in fact, the central propulsive force in our music; it is unambiguous and unequivocal.Dominant 7Dominant 7 Sus2Dominant 7 Sus4TonicSupertonic SpMediant Dp, Tkp, tP, (Sp)SubdominantDominantSubmediant Tp, sP, tCpLeading-tone D̸7Subtonic dP In music theory, a dominant seventh chord, or major minor seventh chord, is a seventh chord composed of a root, major third, perfect fifth, and minor seventh. Thus it is a major triad together with a minor seventh, denoted by the letter name of the chord root and a superscript '7'. An example is the dominant seventh chord built on G, written as G7, having pitches G–B–D–F: Dominant seventh chords contain a strong dissonance, a tritone between the chord's third and seventh. Dominant seventh chords are often built on the fifth scale degree (or dominant) of a key. For instance, in the key of C major, the note G is the fifth of the key, and the seventh chord built on G is the dominant seventh chord, G7 (shown above). In this chord, F is a minor seventh above G and is also called the dominant seventh with respect to G. In roman numeral analysis, G7 would be represented as V7 in the key of C major. The dominant seventh is perhaps the most important of the seventh chords. It was the first seventh chord to appear regularly in classical music. The V7 chord is found almost as often as the V, the dominant triad, and typically functions to drive the piece strongly toward a resolution to the tonic of the key. A dominant seventh chord can be represented by the integer notation {0, 4, 7, 10}. Renaissance composers conceived of harmony in terms of intervals rather than chords, 'however, certain dissonant sonorities suggest that the dominant seventh chord occurred with some frequency.' Monteverdi (usually credited as the first to use the V7 chord without preparation) and other early Baroque composers begin to treat the V7 as a chord as part of the introduction of functional harmony. An excerpt from Monteverdi's 'Lasciatemi Morire', Lamento d'Arianna (1608) is shown below. In it, a dominant seventh chord (in red) is handled conservatively, 'prepared and resolved as a suspension, clearly indicating its dissonant status.' The V7 was in constant use during the Classical period, with similar treatment to that of the Baroque. In the Romantic period, freer voice-leading was gradually developed, leading to the waning of functional use in the post-Romantic and Impressionistic periods including more dissonant dominant chords through higher extensions and lessened use of the major minor chord's dominant function. Twentieth-century classical music either consciously used functional harmony or was entirely free of V7 chords while jazz and popular musics continued to use functional harmony including V7 chords. An excerpt from Chopin's Mazurka in F minor (1849), Op. 68, No. 4, mm. 1–4 is shown below with dominant sevenths in red: 'the seventh factor had by this time achieved nearly consonant status.'