About AmMaj7b5 — drop 2 voicings
AmMaj7b5 is A, C, Eb and G# — Am7b5 with the seventh raised a semitone.
It sounds brittle and impossible to mistake. Scarce enough that most players meet it as a passing sonority rather than as a chord they chose.
Rare tonic — a half-diminished chord with its seventh raised instead.
AmMaj7b5 notes and formula
| A | C | Eb | G# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Also written AmM7b5 or Am(maj7)b5. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play AmMaj7b5
Take the four notes stacked as close together as they go, then drop the second voice from the top an octave. The gap it opens is what makes the chord sound like a chord rather than a cluster.
It lands on four adjacent strings, which is why it is the workhorse voicing on guitar.
AmMaj7b5 has 13 of them, on the middle four strings, the top four strings and the bottom four strings, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: A in the bass, C in the bass, Eb in the bass and G# in the bass. The one to learn first is the A shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the middle four strings, so you can run the inversions up one set without changing strings — which is the whole reason to learn them as a family rather than as separate grips.
Play AmMaj7b5 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 11 (D) or the b13 (F).
All 6 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- x01114, open position, A, root position, top note G#, barred
- 56x544, 4th fret, A, root position, top note G#, all fretted
- 5665x5, 5th fret, A, root position, top note A, barred
- xx7898, 7th fret, A, root position, top note C, all fretted
- x-12-x-13-13-11, 11th fret, A, root position, top note Eb, all fretted
- x-12-13-13-13-x, 12th fret, A, root position, top note C, barred
What to play over AmMaj7b5
Every note of AmMaj7b5 is in A diminished.
Chords near AmMaj7b5
Change one note of AmMaj7b5 and you have Adim (drop the major seventh), Adim7 (the major seventh becomes the diminished seventh), Amaj7b5 (the minor third becomes the major third), Am7b5 (the major seventh becomes the flat seventh), AmMaj7 (the flat fifth becomes the fifth) or Am/G# (the flat fifth becomes the fifth).
AmMaj7b5 is a diminished chord — root, minor third, flat fifth. Diminished and half-diminished chords on every root.
The common shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in how this site is built.