F#maj7 Chord on Ukulele
F#maj7 = F# – A# – C# – F (Root, Major 3rd, Perfect 5th, Major 7th)
F#maj7 swaps the dominant seventh's flat-seven color for a major seventh — F natural — sitting just a half step below the root, and the resulting shape asks for a real stretch: G string at the third, C string at the fifth, E string at the second, and A string at the fourth, spanning four frets with no open string anywhere in the voicing. It's one of the wider four-finger shapes in this key area, closer in feel to a jazz-guitar voicing translated down to four strings than to the tight closed triads nearby.
As the tonic chord of F# major itself, maj7 replaces the plain triad's settled finality with a dreamier, more suspended-sounding color — the major seventh sits a half step from the octave and creates a soft internal dissonance that never fully resolves the way a plain triad does. It's the chord of choice for ballads and bossa-adjacent ukulele arrangements that want harmonic richness without moving into jazzier altered territory, and F#maj7 specifically turns up as the IV chord of C# major in the same repertoire that favors F#7's V-of-B function, giving that key a lush plagal color instead of a driving dominant pull. Because every note here is fretted, none of the chord's shimmer comes from open-string ring; it's entirely a function of the four close intervals stacked against each other.
Fingerings
Mid-Neck Position
How to Practice It
The four-fret span from the E string's second fret to the C string's fifth is the main obstacle — keep the hand angled slightly so the ring and pinky-adjacent fingers can reach the higher frets without the index finger losing its grip on the E string. Because there's no anchor open string, practice fretting and releasing the whole shape as one motion rather than building it finger by finger, since in performance it usually needs to arrive in a single clean placement. If the stretch is too wide at first, a barre-based voicing further up the neck (all four strings at the second fret plus an extension) can substitute, though it changes which chord tone sits on top.
Common Progressions
- I – IV – V (F#maj7 – B – C#, in F# major)
- IV – I (F#maj7 – C#maj7, giving C# major a soft plagal color)
- I – vi – IV – V with F#maj7 as the opening tonic color chord
- F#maj7 substituting for a plain F# triad at a song's final cadence
FAQ
- What's the difference between F# major and F#maj7?
- F#maj7 adds F natural, the note a half step below the octave, giving the plain F# major triad a softer, unresolved shimmer instead of a fully settled sound.
- Why is the F#maj7 shape such a wide stretch?
- Its four notes don't cluster near the open position on GCEA tuning, so the cleanest voicing without foreign tones spreads across four frets with every string fretted and none left open.
- Where does F#maj7 fit harmonically?
- As the tonic of F# major itself and as the IV chord of C# major, where it gives a plagal, lush color rather than the sharper pull a dominant chord like F#7 provides.
- Is there an easier substitute shape for F#maj7?
- A four-string barre at the second fret with the C string extended to the sixth reproduces a related maj7 voicing higher up the neck, trading the open-position stretch for a barre technique instead.
F#maj7 on other instruments: F#maj7 on Guitar, F#maj7 on Piano. Related: how chords are built, chord finder.