About Abm7 — drop 3 voicings
Abm7 is Ab, Cb, Eb and Gb — Abm with the flat seventh added.
It sounds smooth and unhurried. The ii of every major key, so most progressions you already know begin on one of these.
Abm7 notes and formula
| Ab | Cb | Eb | Gb |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | ♭7 |
Pre-dominant — the ii of a major key, and a tonic in its own right.
Also written Abmin7, Ab-7 or Ab minor 7. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Abm7
The same operation one voice further down: the third voice from the top falls an octave and becomes the bass.
That leaves a bigger hole under the top three notes, so a string gets skipped: the muted string in the middle is the shape, not a mistake.
Abm7 has 9 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: Ab in the bass, Cb in the bass, Eb in the bass and Gb in the bass. The one to learn first is the Cb shape at the nut.
5 of them sit on strings 6-4-3-2, 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 xx6877 — no barre. None of the shapes for Abm7 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 4th fret. 2 of the 6 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 4th fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 464444 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Ab | barred |
| xx6877 | 6th fret | Ab, root position | Cb | all fretted |
| x-11-9-11-9-x | 9th fret | Ab, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| x-11-9-11-12-x | 9th fret | Ab, root position | Cb | all fretted |
| x-11-13-11-12-11 | 11th fret | Ab, root position | Eb | barred |
| x-x-13-13-12-14 | 12th fret | Eb, 2nd inversion | Gb | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 5 shell and 14 drop 2 voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Abm7, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (Bb), the 11 (Db) and the 13 (F).
How to use Abm7
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Abm7 is Bbm7♭5 to Eb7♭9: the ii and the V of Ab minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Abm7 belongs to C# minor (the v), Eb minor (the iv), E major (the iii), F# major (the ii), Ab minor (the i) and B major (the vi).
What to play over Abm7
Every note of Abm7 is in Ab minor pentatonic, Ab blues, Ab dorian, Ab natural minor and Ab phrygian.
Chords near Abm7
Change one note of Abm7 and you have Abm (drop the flat seventh), Abm6 (the flat seventh becomes a sixth), Abm7b5 (the fifth becomes a flat fifth), Abm9 (add the ninth), AbmMaj7 (the flat seventh becomes a major seventh) or Abmadd9 (the flat seventh becomes a ninth).
Abm7 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Abm7’s sound and use this page follows Mark Levine, The Jazz Theory Book (Sher Music, 1995). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.