About Abaug — triad voicings
Abaug is Ab, C and E — Ab with the fifth raised a semitone.
It sounds stretched, and suspended between keys. Its commonest job is passing between a major triad and its sixth or seventh, with the raised fifth as a single voice walking up.
Abaug notes and formula
| Ab | C | E |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♯5 |
Passing chord — it belongs to no key in particular.
Also written Ab+, Ab(#5) or Ab augmented. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Abaug
Three notes on one string set. No seventh, so nothing is claimed about the chord beyond its quality.
Thin on their own, excellent over a bass line or against someone else’s harmony.
Abaug has 46 of them, on the top three strings, the low-middle three, the high-middle three, the middle four strings, the top four strings, the bottom four strings, the bottom three strings, strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Ab in the bass, C in the bass and E in the bass. The one to learn first is the Ab shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
6 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.
Start with xx6554 — low, at the 4th fret. None of the shapes for Abaug uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. None of them needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43211x | 1st fret | Ab, root position | C | all fretted |
| 4x6554 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| xx6554 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| x-x-10-9-9-8 | 8th fret | C, 1st inversion | C | all fretted |
| x-11-10-9-9-x | 9th fret | Ab, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| x-11-x-13-13-12 | 11th fret | Ab, root position | E | all fretted |
| x-11-14-13-13-x | 11th fret | Ab, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-x-x-13-13-12 | 12th fret | Ab, root position | E | all fretted |
What to play over Abaug
Every note of Abaug is in Ab whole tone and Ab altered.
Chords near Abaug
Change one note of Abaug and you have Ab (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth), Abmaj7#5 (add the major seventh) or Abaug7 (add the flat seventh).
Abaug is a augmented chord — root, major third, sharp fifth. Augmented chords on every root.
On Abaug’s sound and use this page follows Stefan Kostka, Dorothy Payne & Byron Almén, Tonal Harmony (McGraw-Hill, 8th ed., 2018). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.