Jambole.com – for Guitarists

I’ll review the basic Augmented triad, and the 7th variants in this post.

Augmented Chords

Augmented chords are based on a triad containing a root a major third and a sharp, or augmented 5th, hence the name.

The Augmented triad is symmetric with a major third between the root, third, fifth and octave. This means that any of the chord tones in an Augmented triad can be considered a root note.

Lets start by drawing out the intervals.

Applying these to the guitar next we have 3 basic and common chord shapes.

Major 7th Augmented Chords

Major 7th Augmented chords are derived from the Augmented triad, above. In this case we add an additional Major 7th note. Drawing this out gives us.

Adding the 7th means that these chords no longer have a symmetric shape. So in the next set of charts the root note is highlighted in black.