The Gmaj7 chord
Hear the Gmaj7 and you hear soft, dreamy and unresolved, courtesy of the major seventh spelling (G - B - D - F#). Players use it to voice a major chord without the brightness, which is why it turns up across the standards repertoire and most singer-songwriter cycles. A bright, sustained chord that became a folk-rock staple after Neil Young leaned on it. 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 Gmaj7 in the chord builder →Voicings for Gmaj7
Common ways to grip the Gmaj7 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 Gmaj7 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 Gmaj7
Progressions that use Gmaj7
Short progressions that put the Gmaj7 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 Gmaj7
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.
- Cinnamon Girl by Neil Young. Gmaj7 as a colourful resolution.
- Daydream by The Lovin' Spoonful. Gmaj7 inside the breezy verse.
- California Dreamin' by The Mamas and the Papas. Gmaj7 inside the harmony.
Related chords
Chords a step away from the Gmaj7 in the songwriting circle, the natural neighbours when you want a substitution.
Keys where Gmaj7 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 Gmaj7 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 Gmaj7 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 Gmaj7. For interactive playback, voice-leading hints and substitution suggestions, open the chord builder above.