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C dominant seventh chord on piano

Find the C dominant seventh notes, inspect their piano positions, and compare inversions with an audible reference.

Interactive piano keyboardSelected notes: C4 · E4 · G4 · B♭4. Gold marks the root when one is known.C4D4E4F4G4A4B4C5C♯4D♯4F♯4G♯4B♭4
Root noteSelected tone

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C Minor

C4 · E♭4 · G4

Notes and intervals

DegreeNotesSemitones
1C40
3E44
5G47
♭7B♭410

The notes and their roles

C dominant seventh contains C, E, G and B♭. From the root, the semitone offsets are 0, 4, 7, 10. The degree formula 1, 3, 5, ♭7 describes each member relative to the root, not its order in a particular voicing.

NoteRoleSemitones above root
CRoot0
EMajor third4
GPerfect fifth7
B♭Minor seventh10

Read this shape accurately

First inspect the major-triad foundation of this seventh chord. C, E and G are all white keys, but their spacing is not even: C to E is four semitones and E to G is three. Count the black keys between the notes when checking the distances.

Hear the seventh

The seventh here is B♭. Keeping C · E · G fixed and changing only that note to B produces C major seventh. Compare both at the same octave and volume so the one-note difference stays easy to hear.

A dominant-seventh chord is a chord quality. Calling it dominant does not, by itself, establish the key or prove that this chord is functioning as V in a progression.

Choose a bass note

The root-position octave example is C4 · E4 · G4 · B♭4. Inversions put a different member in the bass while retaining C as the root. The table gives pitch-class order; move the leading notes up an octave as needed to keep each example ascending.

PositionNotes from the bassBass
Root positionC · E · G · B♭C
First inversionE · G · B♭ · CE
Second inversionG · B♭ · C · EG
Third inversionB♭ · C · E · GB♭

A short listening check

Play C dominant seventh together, then as separate notes. Name the major third before looking at the display. Repeat in first inversion and check that E is the bass while C remains the root.

  1. Choose the displayed root and quality in the chord explorer.
  2. Compare root position with one inversion at the same tempo.
  3. Save both examples in a named practice collection, or export a reference with note names.

Sources and methods