How to Play B7 Guitar Chord

For beginners, learning to play the B7 chord on guitar may not be high on their lists of things to do.

The name sounds complicated and most will begin with simple chords like A, Em, G major and C major. 

But B7 is actually a common and useful guitar chord in popular music. 

And it’s relatively easy to play if you can already play a B chord. 

This article explains everything you need to know about the B7 chord. 

The Easiest Way to Play B7 Chord

The best thing about B7 is that unlike other voicings of B chords, it can be played as an open chord. In other words, it uses open strings. This type of chord is usually much easier for beginners to play. 

The easiest way to play the B7 chord is:

• Put your index finger on string 5, fret 2 
• Put your second finger on string 4, fret 1
• Put finger 3 on the third string, fret 2
• Put your fourth finger on string 1, fret 2
• Play all strings except string 6

If this is too difficult then you can also choose to not put your fourth finger on string 1. You’ll need to make sure you don’t strum string 1. 

What Does the 7 Mean?

Guitar chords are built from notes in a scale. There are eight notes in a scale. 

Normal major chords are made up of three notes. Seventh chords add the flat 7th note from the scale to the chord. This gives the chord a different character. 

A normal major chord includes three notes from the scale:

• The 1st – the root note
• The 3rd – the major 3rd
• The 5th – the perfect 5th

A normal B major chord uses the B major scale. For B, the three chord notes are:

• B (root note)
• D# (major 3rd)
• F# (perfect 5th)

The 7th note in the B major scale is B♭ – that’s one fret lower than B. 

Just to make things even more complicated, a B7 uses a flat 7th. This means that we bring the note down an extra fret so it’s an A.

This means B7 adds an extra A to the other 3.

Other Ways to Play B7

The example above is the easiest way to play B7. But B7 can be played anywhere on the guitar fretboard where you find a B note.

B7 chord A-shape

This uses the same chord shape as the A7 open chord but played with a barre at the 2nd fret. This shifts the root note up two to become a B7.

• Put finger one across strings 5,4,3,2 and 1 to form a barre on the 2nd fret
• Put finger 2 on string 4, fret 4
• Put finger 4 on string 2, fret 4
• Play all strings except string 6

B7 chord E-shape

This version is uses the open E7 chord shape played with a barre across all strings at the 7th fret.

Here’s how to play it:

• Place the side of finger one across all strings on fret 7 to form a barre
• Put your third finger on string  5, fret 9
• Put finger 2 on string 3, fret 8
• Strum all strings

B7 chord D-shape

This is based on the open D7 shape. The root note is played on string 4. It is a very hard chord to play.

• Put your index finger on string 4, fret 9
• Put finger 2 on string 3, fret 11
• Put finger 3 on string 2, fret 10
• Put finger 4 on string 1 fret 11

Other Types of B7 Chord

B7 is sometimes called B dominant 7th chord but there are other forms of B7. 

The two most common are B major 7 and B minor 7.

How to play B major 7 (Bmaj7)

Major seventh chords use the same notes as the dominant seventh chords, but the added seventh note isn’t flat.

For B major 7 this means it’s a B flat (confusingly).

The most common way to play B major 7 is:

• Put the side of your first finger across strings 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 to form a barre across fret 2
• Put your third finger on string 4, fret 4
• Put finger 2 on string 3, fret 3
• Put finger 4 on string 2, fret 4
• Strum all strings except string 6

How to play B minor 7 (Bmin7)

B minor seventh uses the same notes as B7, except the major third becomes a minor third. This basically means you play it one note lower. 

In other words the D# becomes a D.

One of the most common ways to play this is:

• Put the side of your first finger across strings 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 to form a bar across the second fret
• Put finger 3 on string 4, fret 4
• Put finger 2 on string 2 fret 3
• Strum all strings except string 6

Popular Songs That Use B7

Here are a few songs that feature B7. B7 is generally used to give guitar riffs a blues sound and you’ll notice that it is used to create a slightly bittersweet atonal sound. This is usually “resolved” in other words, it goes back to a satisfying sweet note.

Sweet Home Chicago – Robert Johnson

I Wanna Hold Your Hand – The Beatles

The Man Who Sold the World – David Bowie

Little Red Rooster – BB King

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – The Rolling Stones

Learn Every Chord With Guitarist 101!

Have you found this deep dive on the B7 chord useful? If so, why not check out some of our other guitar chord lessons?

For example, you can check out some more beginner guitar chords here. 

If you want something more complicated then check out our deep dive on the F chord for guitar or open D tuning chords.