B7 Guitar Chord

The following post will show you how to play the B7 Chord on Guitar.   This lesson is aimed at beginner to intermediate guitarists. Follow this link for an easy version of the B7 Guitar Chord.

To play this particular chord, we will first need to look at the B Major Scale.  The B Major Scale consists of the following notes: B C# D# E F# G# A# .  So why do we need to look at this scale?  Well this scale is where we will find the 4 notes that make up this particular chord. Which notes?   Good question.   As you can see, there are 7 notes in this scale, but we only need 4, so we apply a small formula.  That formula is: 1,3,5,b7.  This just means that we take the 1st, 3rd, 5th and Flattened 7th positions of the B Major Scale.  The flattened 7 means that we take the 7th positions of this scale and flatten it 1/2 step to give us our “A” note.

There are 5 variations of this chord as seen in the chord charts below.  Scroll down to see exactly what this chord looks like all over the neck of the guitar.  Enjoy!

So the notes of the B7 Chord are: B, D#, F# and A

There are several different ways to play it, but I will demonstrate the easiest way in the following post.

Here is a key that will help you read the chart:

Everything on the above chart should be self explanatory, except for the last three in the third column. They may need a bit of explaining. The O, or open symbol, simply means that you do not press down on any notes on that string. The X means you do not strum that particular string. The Barre symbol means you need to barre that particular fret. When you barre a fret you are pressing down on multiple strings at the same time with one finger.

Video Demonstration