Chord & FretAmaj7 · Guitar
Play a plain A. Nice — but ground-floor nice. Now hit play: Amaj7 is the same house with high ceilings.
Listen first
What you just heard
Here's the curious part: G#, the new note, lives a half step from A — that close, it should grind. And it does. But C# and E hold the room, so the grind turns into shimmer instead of a fight. Play the arpeggio again, no rush all the way to the last note and wait: you'll feel the spark without the fire. It's danger with a seatbelt on — which is why it sounds expensive.
Now it's your hands' turn
On the guitar, six strings give the chord room to breathe — some positions use them all, others ask you to mute the lowest ones. So go with the first position below — 2 open strings as a bonus; the position marked with ⭐ is the easiest to play. Then do the before-and-after: A, then Amaj7. 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.
1 more shape of this chord on the neck
Part of 218,399 voicings and inversions in Chord & Fret Pro — see and play every one.
Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · try it 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 Amaj7 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. Made by musicians, no ads.
Left-handed? Mirror's right here
What is Amaj7?
Amaj7: A Major with Major Seventh. The notes are A, C#, E, G# (fixed-do: La, Do#, Mi, Sol#) — the degrees 1–3–5–7.
Where this chord lives
Across keys, Amaj7 works as VImaj7 in C# minor, IVmaj7 in E major, IIImaj7 in F# 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 · open in Chord & Fret
Where it tends to go
Treating Amaj7 as the home chord (I) of its key, it usually moves toward the pre-dominant (Bm / D) or the dominant (E / G#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. It's a tendency, not a law.
When you want to go further
For improvising, A Ionian (A B C# D E F# G# · 1 2 3 4 5 6 7: the plain major scale, where everything starts); A Lydian (A B C# D# E F# G# · 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7: the major scale with a raised fourth — one extra step of daydream); A Lydian ♯2 (A B# C# D# E F# G# · 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.
A Ionian
3 more scale positions on the neck
Chord & Fret Pro maps 35,178 mapped scale shapes — hear and play them all.
The same A Ionian 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 Amaj7 as home, the A Ionian scale covers it whole — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (E) pulls back, the leading tone Ab is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
- Gbm7 — Relative minor (vi) — same tonic function
- Dbm7 — 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 · open in Chord & Fret
And when the song wants solid ground again, the way back is short: plain A. Drop the seventh, close the window — the house is still there.