The A7 chord
Built from A - C# - E - G, the A7 is a dominant seventh that sounds the cornerstone of the twelve-bar. It lives at the centre of every blues form and most jazz tunes, and it shows up in more songs than you would expect. Sits perfectly under a Texas-blues groove, and the V chord in D-major country. What follows below: the voicings worth memorising on guitar and piano, the theory in plain language, progressions in two or three different keys, and a short list of real records that lean on the chord.
Hear the A7 in the chord builder →Voicings for A7
Common ways to grip the A7 on guitar and piano. Guitar diagrams read low E to high E left-to-right; an × means muted, an open circle above the nut means an open string. Filled dots are fretted notes.
Guitar , full chord shapes
CAGED-derived voicings for A7 across the neck. Pick the shape closest to where your hand already sits.
Guitar , triad shapes
Three-note triad shapes on each string set, shown moving up the neck. Light textures for arpeggios, pop layering and chord-melody work.
Piano voicings
Root position and inversions. The bass note matters: each inversion changes how the chord sits under a melody.
The theory behind A7
Progressions that use A7
Short progressions that put the A7 to work. Each one is shown in a different key so you can pick the one that suits your singer.
This chord appears as a borrowed or passing chord in many major-key progressions.
→ Build this in the chord builderSongs that feature A7
Real records where this chord does structural work. No lyrics quoted, just the title and artist so you can pull up a copy and hear it in context.
- Stir It Up by Bob Marley. A7 in the verse cycle.
- Tequila by The Champs. A7 as part of the instrumental hook.
- Mustang Sally by Wilson Pickett. A7 in the song's blues form.
Related chords
Chords a step away from the A7 in the songwriting circle, the natural neighbours when you want a substitution.
Keys where A7 lives
The keys where this chord turns up diatonically. Open any key page for the full set of progressions that lean on it.
Related references
Other ways to put the A7 to work across the reference library.
More songwriting tools
Got the chord but still wrestling with the lyric? Find the right rhyme in RhymeForge, or break a writer's block with the unexpected word-pair generator in CollisionLab. Need to map a full progression? The chord builder on the home page is where the A7 fits into context. All free, no signup.
About the chord builder
The Undercover Zest chord progression builder is a free interactive tool that maps every diatonic and borrowed chord in every key. Click a Roman numeral to hear it, drag chords into a progression, then audition voicings, inversions and tensions until the song clicks.
This page is a static reference for the A7. For interactive playback, voice-leading hints and substitution suggestions, open the chord builder above.