An old friend of mine by the name of Jamie Graeme showed me something really cool quite a few years ago and it's been a big part of my playing ever since. Jamie went to GIT, and when he came back one of the things he showed me was a real easy way to play 7th chords built using (in this order) just the root, 7th and 3rd notes of the chord—the 5th degree is left out, although I'll show you a variation that brings the 5th back too. You can use this concept for chord types such as minor 7, dominant 7, major 7 and minor ma7 chords. For this post I'll look at the minor 7 because it's probably the easiest to play and it's perhaps a little more common across a range of styles. Here's the form with the root note on the 6th string:
With the root note on the 5th string:
And with the root note on the 4th string:
These chords are great for working with written chord progressions where the notes haven't been specified or for accompanying other musicians. They work with a wide range of styles, usually leave a few fingers free to add in other notes if you need to, and basically are a handy thing to have in your bag of tricks.
You can also include the 5th note on top as the following 2 fretboard diagrams show:
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