A shadow with a knife of light running through it.
The Chord
The minor-major seventh is a beautiful contradiction spelled out in four notes. It takes a minor triad and crowns it with a major seventh — a minor third, a major third, then a major third. On C the notes are C, E♭, G, B. The lowered third makes it minor and dark; the raised seventh, a half step below the octave, makes it gleam. The two pull against each other, and that friction is the entire point.
Sitting between the flattened third and the leading-tone seventh is a small, sharp dissonance that never quite settles. The chord is grounded by its perfect fifth but haunted by that upper note, which glints against the minor body like something bright glimpsed in the dark. It is minor tonality with a splinter of major light lodged inside it.
Structure
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Formula | 1 ♭3 5 7 |
| Notes (on C) | C E♭ G B |
| Symbol | Cm(maj7) |
| Quality | Haunting, noir — the “James Bond” chord |
Character
The minor-major seventh is suspense in chord form — sophisticated, uneasy, faintly dangerous. It is the harmony of spy themes and film noir, of glamour with a threat underneath. The clash between its dark third and bright seventh gives it a shivering, cinematic tension that feels both elegant and unresolved. Few chords say “something is about to happen” so precisely.
In Practice
The minor-major seventh often appears as the first chord of a descending minor line, where the tonic’s note steps down chromatically from the octave through the major seventh toward the flattened seventh below. That “line cliché” is its natural habitat, in jazz ballads, torch songs, and film scores alike. It is the Minor Triad and the Major Seventh fused into a single ambivalent object, and it resolves with a noir slink toward the Minor Seventh.