Originally Posted by: dlwalkeAs for the point of this thread, I see now, looking more closely and based on what you guys were saying, that my premise was incorrect concerning the maj7 chord.[/quote]

Glad the replies helped!

Originally Posted by: dlwalkeThis led me to try some experiments with what to me were interesting results. Basically, I played every possible sequence of a 3 note C chord (i.e., CEG, CGE, GCE, ECG, GCE, and GEC) alone, and also as a I chord in a simple blues pattern.[/quote]

Inversions! :) This is a big step in developing as a musician. As beginner guitarists we all start with the basic struggles of just getting the mecahnics right in order to play a chord in any way we can.

But once those basic mechanics are solved then we can start to make our playing more musical by exploring the variety of chord voicings! This collection of tutorials is aimed at exploring that territory

https://www.guitartricks.com/collection/triads-and-inversions

[quote=dlwalke]So what I'm taking away from that is that the harmonic function of a chord (in the context of whatever other chords are being played) is absolutely dependent on the notes and relatively immune to alterations of the intervals between them, even though the intervals do have a pretty big impact on the sound.

This is a great observation & mostly true: harmonic function is not dependent on voicing. But it's almost an understatement to say the voicings have a "pretty big impact"! In fact the voicings are the sound in its entirety. This is how & why the same set of chords can have completely different resulting sounds. And of course timbre.

[quote=dlwalke]I assume that for other things I haven't gotten to, like voice leading in particular, playing with moving bass lines and such, the order of notes become much more important. Let me know if you think I've come away with the wrong conclusions.

Voice leading is the engine of music. Sounds like you are gaining understanding!