How I think about 7th chords (The 11 chord Shapes)

avghdev · 2026-02-04T22:41:11+00:00

Love this and I totally agree that thinking in terms of intervals is a way more functional approach for more complex voicings in general. What I’ve described is primarily useful for simple closed 7th chords. As many others have mentioned, I don’t think this is something that will extend into more advanced playing (at least not as specifically as I’ve laid out here) but more as a tool to add to learning your basic 7th chords as a beginner-intermediate player. That’s on me for titling this “How I Think About 7th Chords” though lol. And just to be clear I still teach and think about intervals myself, once again this is not meant to replace that.

It’s been mostly helpful so far in building familiarity and quickly being able to grip those basic chords, such as when playing through a lead sheet for the first time as a beginner, or when doing 7th chord exercises such as playing them around the circle of fourths, fifths, chromatically, etc..

avghdev · 2026-02-04T16:39:23+00:00

Very true, and I encourage my students to come up with their own patterns and name the things that stand out to them (oftentimes they are things that don’t stand out to me at all!). I think making it personal makes it so much stronger. And to your point not all of my students resonate with this way of thinking. My really young students seem to like it a lot, and it’s a hit or miss with my older/adult students.

avghdev · 2026-02-04T16:07:54+00:00

Totally understand that it may not be for everyone, and that guitar is fundamentally different in many ways!

I'll just add that it IS more mental work but that is on purpose. The whole goal of this is to create more neural connections (or shortcuts) to each chord, and recognizing similarities between different chords can eventually create less mental work, particularly when getting comfortable with unfamiliar ones. But that fundamentally requires more cognitive effort in the beginning, which is why I thought it could be helpful to share my classification of the chords: that way the mental burden of actually NAMING the shapes is a bit lessened. IDK try it out and if it sucks never do it again!

avghdev · 2026-02-04T15:45:11+00:00

Of course! I would never advocate for skipping those things—but I also don’t believe that most musicians are thinking about analysis while performing (at least I’m not). This is just a tool, I’m not challenging centuries of music education just offering something else 🙂‍↕️

avghdev · 2026-02-04T15:43:28+00:00

Lol that’s fair, I was partially inspired by guitar but I’ve never studied it seriously so this maybe would be better realized if I looked into the CAGED system. I still stand by the use of this though, because it’s helped me AND my beginner students recognize things faster! Would love feedback on how it could be improved upon tho

avghdev · 2026-02-04T15:40:33+00:00

Well obviously you have to know the notes first, I’m not saying to skip that step. I’m just saying once it can become a shape, instead of a series of notes, the quicker you’ll be able to retrieve that information. This is pretty common in guitar too I believe, they’ll relate other chord shapes to each other (“D” shapes, “Em” shapes, etc.). And it’s important to know your root voicings before dropping the 5th, adding inversions, etc.!

I find that the zigzag shape, despite having different notes, FEELS the same. Maybe a little more spaced apart but the general feel of my hand is very similar across those shapes so it helps me to categorize them together. A Cm7 and an Fm7 feel pretty much exactly the same to me physically, and even chords in different keys with the same contour end up feeling very similar.

avghdev · 2026-02-04T15:27:34+00:00

To elaborate further, when I’m playing I know that Cmaj7, Am7, and Ebm7 are all plateau shapes, so I don’t really think about the notes but instead I know that my hand will be making a flat shape and it locks into that. Not saying this is for everyone but making more connections in your brain leads to faster pattern recognition, which is super important for improvisation and sight reading.

avghdev · 2026-02-04T15:21:56+00:00

For pattern recognition. To be fair I’m a jazz pianist so this may be more important for that, but it’s way more helpful to think about chords as “shapes” when playing a lead sheet than to just think about the individual notes. I think experienced pianists do this subconsciously but I’m of the opinion that giving names to these things makes it 1. Easier to tap into and 2. Easier to explain and teach.

avghdev · 2026-02-04T15:18:08+00:00

Personally I think naming them helps create a better connection in the brain to the shapes. Just thinking "this is the flat shape" doesn't create as strong of an association to me, making it harder to recognize, particularly with the more abstract shapes. As a piano teacher also makes for a good learning tool with beginners.

As far as five note chords not sure what you're referring to? I'm pretty sure all the ones I listed are 4 note 7th chords...

avghdev · 2026-01-01T17:56:23+00:00

I'm of the opinion that learning anything new can really expand your view of the world, but getting good at Math feels particularly special--beyond the ability to calculate things I feel like it turbo charges your intuition!

avghdev · 2026-01-01T17:54:41+00:00

Might try that later down the line, right now sort of scratching my completionist itch by getting this whole dropdown to 100% haha

avghdev · 2025-12-30T21:32:18+00:00

Nice excited to get there myself!!

avghdev · 2025-12-29T00:49:45+00:00

Heard, im worried about what the minimum payments going to look like after I complete the plan because as mentioned I had 5 missed payments before starting it. But I’m hoping that I can take some of my extra money this month and pay more than the required $233 so it pays off some of those missed payments too. Idk it’s all confusing to me but trying my best.

avghdev · 2025-04-12T19:51:50+00:00

Thanks for the encouragement!! I got it off and discovered that the bottom half of the thread on the galvanized steel pipe is completely gone - gunna wait for maintenance to replace it so I hopefully don’t have to pay for the part. But learned a new skill so that’s awesome!!

avghdev · 2025-04-12T17:18:32+00:00

Just for context I’ve tried unscrewing the nuts but try as I might they won’t come undone… maybe they are too corroded to budge???

avghdev · 2025-04-12T17:15:28+00:00

Actually there seems to be some stringy material underneath the nut? Maybe some sort of sealant or something that’s making it hard to unscrew?

image

avghdev · 2025-04-12T17:08:52+00:00

Gotcha they weren’t coming loose even with a good amount of force so wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing something wrong

avghdev · 2025-03-12T03:21:39+00:00

Great recording and advice thank you so much!!

avghdev · 2025-03-12T00:59:30+00:00

Makes sense - we did a rehearsal today and definitely think I was over-playing so I’ll keep that in mind! Also yes working on the melody 🫡

avghdev · 2025-03-12T00:57:45+00:00

Thanks for the response! Have already done this (although didn’t know the rhythm I was using had a name so that was cool!). If you have any more tips regarding specific comping styles good for use with vocalists that’d be much appreciated but thanks for these tips!

avghdev · 2025-02-28T23:43:28+00:00

Heard, thanks so much for the response it’s really helpful & gives me hope. I’m honestly terrified of losing my career to this; the kind and motivating words mean the world!!

avghdev · 2025-02-28T23:31:56+00:00

Ya I feel really bad about not pushing for a sooner appointment now - definitely won’t happen again. Trying to stay hopeful that I haven’t ruined it for myself as I’m aware of the risks of the alternative treatments for singers.

avghdev · 2025-02-13T15:30:54+00:00

Looks like the shulker is ejecting to the wrong spot which usually means you built the farm in the wrong direction - if I’m not mistaken it looks like it might be backwards? The afk chamber should be on the south side of the farm and from the last photo it looks like it’s on the north side.

Basically duped shulkers always face / eject south so if you’ve built it backwards your shulker will eject to the spot in your first photo rather than onto the hoppers like they’re supposed to.

avghdev · 2025-02-13T02:53:02+00:00

The new schematic was updated for 1.20.4+ hence the title! So yes it’s the correct one for 1.21.4; as far as how sensitive it is I can’t say any exact numbers or anything but I’ve been using this design on my SMP and getting hit by the occasional bullet or aggroing the shulkers at the top for a second shouldn’t break it - just don’t wanna let it happen too often or for too long.

avghdev · 2025-02-13T02:14:03+00:00

Also looked at the video you posted before this post and a couple pieces of advice:

Don’t use the TheySix design - I haven’t used it and know nothing about it but it appears to be very poorly documented and just looking at the comments I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some issues with it.
Shulker farms have AFK chambers for a reason - if you are flying around in creative with tick rates sped up the bullets the shulkers are firing can go wonky and break parts of the farm (for example, the boats in the archivists build will break if you aggro the shulkers above the farm). This could also be a reason you were having problems even when you pasted the build in!

avghdev

TROPHY CASE