Chord & FretF#7 · Cavaquinho
You know when you climb stairs in the dark and count one step too many? Your foot hangs there, waiting for a floor that never came. Hit play below: F#7 is that foot in the air.
Listen first
What you just heard
Why does it sound unfinished? Inside F#7, two notes are arguing: A# and E. Now listen to the arpeggio, one note at a time and catch the second and the last note — the distance between them is the tritone, the tensest interval tonal music knows. F# and C# keep the house standing while those two argue inside it. And an argument, you know, demands a resolution.
Now it's your hands' turn
On the cavaquinho, four steel strings tuned D–G–B–D pack the chord into a small, bright space — every finger counts. So grab the first position below; the position marked with ⭐ is the easiest to play. Now the experiment that explains this chord better than any explanation: play F#7, count to three, then play B. Felt the door close? Do it again. That relief is the reason this chord exists.
2 more shapes of this chord on the neck
That's over 200,000 voicings and inversions in Chord & Fret Pro, ready to play.
Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · see it in Chord & Fret
Save the positions below for when the blues calls: over there, this chord is the house language.
Every shape of F#7 lives in Chord & Fret Pro — 4 instruments, 16 tunings, 41 chord types and 57 scales, in every key. Start free. Unlock everything with Pro. 100% offline. Free to start, no card needed.
Left-handed? Mirror's right here
What is F#7?
F#7: F# Major with Seventh. The notes are F#, A#, C#, E (fixed-do: Fa#, La#, Do#, Mi) — the degrees 1–3–5–b7.
Where this chord lives
Its job is fixed: F#7 is a dominant, and dominants live as VII7 in G# minor, V7 in B major. Plainly: where it enters, the song is about to leave the room. A chart full of 7th chords is a song that won't sit still.
Transpose & Capo — Need it in another key? Move the whole chart and find the easiest capo · try it in Chord & Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · open in Chord & Fret
Where it tends to go
Treating F#7 as the home chord (I) of its key, it tends to go toward the pre-dominant (G#m / B) or the dominant (C# / E#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.
When you want to go further
For soloing, F# Mixolydian (F# G# A# B C# D# E · 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7: the major scale with a lowered seventh — the blues accent); F# Lydian dominant (F# G# A# B# C# D# E · 1 2 3 #4 5 6 b7: a mixolydian with a raised fourth: the dominant in formalwear) cover the whole chord. And look at the first swap on the list below: that's the famous tritone substitution, the twin dominant living three whole steps from here, the one arrangers reach for when they want to arrive at the same place by a prettier road.
F# Mixolydian
4 more scale positions on the neck
That's over 35,000 mapped scale shapes in Chord & Fret Pro, ready to play.
The same F# Mixolydian in its main shapes along the neck — pick whichever position sits under your hand. The rings mark the guide notes (the 3rd and 7th) that carry this chord's color.
Improvising in context
To improvise over F#7 as home, the F# Mixolydian scale fits entirely — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (C#) pulls back, the leading tone F is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
- C7 — Tritone substitution (shared 3rd–7th tritone)
- Dbm7 — Forms a II–V: precede with this ii
- Gdim7 — Passing diminished (ascending)
Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · use it in Chord & Fret
The same chord, dressed for jazz
Jazz Lab — Drop 2, drop 3 and shell in any key — the Jazz Lab opens them all · use it in Chord & Fret
You already know how this sentence ends. The period after F#7 is called B — go there and close it with your own fingers.