The Amaj7 chord
Hear the Amaj7 and you hear a major chord with a wistful halo, courtesy of the major seventh spelling (A - C# - E - G#). Players use it to voice a major chord without the brightness, which is why it turns up across bossa nova, smooth jazz and modern R&B. The chord behind the dreamy verse of Sunday Morning by Maroon 5. Common voicings on guitar and piano, the theory in plain language, the progressions where the chord earns its place, and a list of real song references are all in the sections that follow.
Hear the Amaj7 in the chord builder →Voicings for Amaj7
Common ways to grip the Amaj7 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 Amaj7 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 Amaj7
Progressions that use Amaj7
Short progressions that put the Amaj7 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 Amaj7
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.
- Sunday Morning by Maroon 5. Amaj7 in the chorus harmony.
- Drive by Incubus. Amaj7 in the song's gentle palette.
- Norwegian Wood by The Beatles. Amaj7-like colour in the chord-melody style.
Related chords
Chords a step away from the Amaj7 in the songwriting circle, the natural neighbours when you want a substitution.
Keys where Amaj7 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 Amaj7 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 Amaj7 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 Amaj7. For interactive playback, voice-leading hints and substitution suggestions, open the chord builder above.