C#maj7 · Electric guitar

An empty café at ten in the morning, somebody drying cups, quiet music nobody chose but everybody approves of. That music is full of chords like C#maj7. Give the audio below a listen.

Listen first

What you just heard

Here's the curious part: C, the new note, lives a half step from C# — that close, it should grind. And it does. But F and G# hold the room, so the grind turns into shimmer instead of a fight. Go back to the audio and catch the arpeggio note by note all the way to the last note and wait: you'll feel the spark without the fire. It's tension, domesticated — which is why it sounds expensive.

Now it's your hands' turn

On the electric guitar a chord needs only a few clear notes — the amp sustains them and fills the space, so you mute the strings you are not playing and let the tone carry the rest. So go with the first position below; the position marked with ⭐ is the easiest to play. Then do the before-and-after: C#, then C#maj7. The second is the first one after sunset. Repeat until it stops sounding "wrong" — for a lot of people this chord feels odd on the first listen and addictive by the third.

Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · open in Chord & Fret

The mid-neck positions are the favorites of anyone backing a singer: up there, a maj7 turns into carpet. File that away for the day you play with someone.

Every shape of C#maj7 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. No ads, no trackers.

What is C#maj7?

C#maj7: C# Major with Major Seventh. The notes are C#, E#, G#, B# (fixed-do: Do#, Mi#, Sol#, Si#) — the degrees 1–3–5–7.

Where this chord lives

Across keys, C#maj7 works as Imaj7 in C# major, IVmaj7 in G# major, IIImaj7 in A# minor — almost always the deluxe I or the elegant IV. Bossa nova made it a signature and the world copied it; today you hear this chord from jazz to indie pop without it asking permission.

Transpose & Capo — Need it in another key? Move the whole chart and find the easiest capo · use it in Chord & Fret

Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · try it in Chord & Fret

Where it tends to go

Treating C#maj7 as the home chord (I) of its key, it usually moves toward the pre-dominant (D#m / F#) or the dominant (G# / B#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. It's a tendency, not a law.

When you want to go further

For improvising, C# Ionian (C# D# E# F# G# A# B# · 1 2 3 4 5 6 7: the plain major scale, where everything starts); C# Lydian (C# D# E# F## G# A# B# · 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7: the major scale with a raised fourth — one extra step of daydream); C# Lydian ♯2 (C# D## E# F## G# A# B# · 1 #2 3 #4 5 6 7: a lydian with a raised second, harmonic-major color) wrap the whole chord. And the jazz shapes at the end are the same four notes spread across the neck, for the day you want to sound like an arranger.

Improvising in context

To improvise over C#maj7 as home, the C# Ionian scale fits entirely — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (G#) pulls back, the leading tone C is the note that wants to resolve home.

Swaps that work:

• Bbm7 — Relative minor (vi) — same tonic function
• Fm7 — Mediant (iii) — tonic function

Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · see 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 · try it in Chord & Fret

If at some point you want the ground back, it's one click away: C# without the seventh. The house hasn't moved.

Updated July 9, 2026