Am7 piano chord, A minor 7th notes and fingering.

The Am7 piano chord is A minor 7th: A, C, E and G. It is the A minor triad (A, C, E) with a minor seventh (G) added on top, ten semitones above the root. Chord charts write it as Am7 or Amin7.

How to play Am7 on piano

1. Find A on the keyboard. A is the white key between the second and third black keys of the group of three.
2. With your right hand, put finger 1 on A, finger 2 on C, finger 3 on E and finger 5 on G. Finger 1 is the thumb.
3. Press all four keys together. In root position they run from A3 to G4, a reach of 10 semitones. Play chord sounds them together and Arpeggio sounds them one by one, from the bottom up.
4. Click Left hand to see the left hand. It plays A2 to G3, one octave lower: A with finger 5, C with finger 3, E with finger 2, G with finger 1.
5. The cards under the keyboard hold the four positions, with A, C, E and G at the bottom in turn. Play and Arpeggio on a card play that position.
6. Open Note names. Every note of this chord is a white key, so the Sharps and Flats choices show the same names.

How Am7 is built

Counted from the root, the formula is 0, 3, 7, 10. Stacked on each other the gaps are 3 + 4 + 3: a minor third, a major third and another minor third. Leave out the root and the top three notes, C, E and G, make a major triad: C major. That is why Am7 and Cmaj7 look so alike on the keyboard.

Worked example: the pitch of A3. On a piano tuned to A4 = 440 Hz, a note 12 semitones below A4 has the frequency 440 × 2^(-12/12), which is about 220.00 Hz. C4 is 9 semitones below A4, so 440 × 2^(-9/12) gives about 261.63 Hz.

What the keys look like under your hand

A has a black key on each side, Ab on its left and Bb on its right. All four notes are white keys (A, C, E and G), so the hand can stay flat and there is no reaching for a black key. The thumb (A) and little finger (G) are both on white keys here, so the hand can lie in its natural shape.

Am7 inversions and fingering

Am7 has four positions. In root position A is at the bottom. In the first inversion, C is at the bottom and the chord is written Am7/C. In the second inversion, E is at the bottom and the chord is written Am7/E. In the third inversion, G is at the bottom and the chord is written Am7/G. The tightest reach, 8 semitones from the lowest key to the highest, is the second inversion. The widest, at 10, is the root position.

The keys that hold Am7

Am7 fits six of the major and natural minor keys that have a standard key signature, which means every note of it comes from that key's scale. The simplest is C major, with no sharps or flats, where it is chord vi7.

Progressions that use Am7, with the chord numbers and the chords in that key:

• C major: Imaj7-V7-vi7-IVmaj7, which is Cmaj7, G7, Am7, Fmaj7, the four-chord loop heard in a great deal of pop.
• A minor: i7-VImaj7-IIImaj7-VII7, which is Am7, Fmaj7, Cmaj7, G7, a common minor-key loop.
• G major: ii7-V7-Imaj7, which is Am7, D7, Gmaj7, the ii-V-I, the standard jazz resolution.

Here is a worked example in C major. The chord before Am7 in the first progression above is G7 (G, B, D and F). From G7 in root position, the closest way to reach Am7 is its third inversion (G, A, C and E, lowest note first): one note stays where it is, and the others move 5 semitones in total, counting each note against the note in the same place from the bottom.

What Am7 sounds like

Minor 7th chords are mellow. The added seventh softens the plain minor triad, so the chord feels smoother and less heavy. You hear them in jazz, soul, R and B and pop, and as the ii chord of a ii-V-I.

Am7 is the vi7 chord in C major, the i7 chord in A minor and the ii7 chord in G major.

A common mistake with Am7

A common mistake is pressing C# instead of C, one semitone higher than the third of Am7. That gives A7 (A, C#, E and G), a dominant 7th. If the chord sounds brighter and more tense than you expected, the third is the note to check.

Am7, C over A and C6

Am7 is made only of white keys: A, C, E and G. That makes it one of the easiest 7th chords to find, and a good first 7th chord to learn.

Look closely and Am7 contains a C major triad (C, E, G) with an A under it. That is why a chord chart may write the same sound as C/A. The chord C6 is also made of C, E, G and A, so the name you read depends on the lowest note: with A at the bottom it is Am7, with C at the bottom it is C6. The tool shows the first inversion of Am7, which has C at the bottom, so you can hear how close the two names are.

In the key of C major, Am7 is the vi7 chord, and it moves easily to Dm7 and G7. In the key of G major it is the ii7 chord, and it leads straight to D7. Both of those moves use the ii-V-I shape, which is the backbone of a lot of jazz.

Chords to learn next

Chords close to Am7: A minor (the same chord without the seventh; shares A, C and E); A7 (a major third instead; shares A, E and G); Cmaj7 (shares three notes with it); C major (the major triad on top of it; shares C, E and G).

Once Am7 feels easy, play it and then D7 to hear a ii-V move. For chords beyond these six types, and for guitar and ukulele shapes, use the chord finder. To play along with your computer keys, open the virtual piano. The piano chords page lists all 72 chords.