The Dmaj7 chord
The lush chord that opens Just the Two of Us and a hundred other smooth-jazz singles. The Dmaj7 (D - F# - A - C#) is a major seventh, which is why it sounds soft, dreamy and unresolved. Writers pick it for lo-fi atmosphere, and you can find it across the standards repertoire and most singer-songwriter cycles. On guitar the chord sits easily under standard open chord shapes; on piano it stacks straight up under the right hand. The page below covers the voicings worth memorising, the theory, the progressions where the Dmaj7 earns its keep, and the records that lean on it.
Hear the Dmaj7 in the chord builder →Voicings for Dmaj7
Common ways to grip the Dmaj7 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 Dmaj7 across the neck. Pick the shape closest to where your hand already sits.
Guitar , triad shapes
Three-note voicings on three adjacent strings. 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 Dmaj7
Progressions that use Dmaj7
Short progressions that put the Dmaj7 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 Dmaj7
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.
- Just the Two of Us by Bill Withers / Grover Washington Jr.. Dmaj7 as the lush home chord.
- Wave by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Dmaj7 in the bossa harmony.
- My Funny Valentine by Standard. Dmaj7 inside the lush ballad changes.
Related chords
Chords a step away from the Dmaj7 in the songwriting circle, the natural neighbours when you want a substitution.
Keys where Dmaj7 lives
The keys where this chord turns up diatonically. Open any key page for the full set of progressions that lean on it.
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 Dmaj7 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 Dmaj7. For interactive playback, voice-leading hints and substitution suggestions, open the chord builder above.