Abmaj7b5 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Abmaj7b5 — drop 3 voicings
Abmaj7b5 is Ab, C, D and G — Abmaj7 with the fifth lowered a semitone.
It sounds hollow and hard to place. Far more often met spelled the other way round, as a ♯11 over a chord that kept its fifth.
Coloured tonic — rare, and unstable for a major chord.
Abmaj7b5 notes and formula
| Ab | C | D | G |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Also written AbM7b5, AbΔ7b5 or Abmaj7(b5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Abmaj7b5
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.
Abmaj7b5 has 10 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Ab in the bass, C in the bass, Ebb in the bass and G in the bass. The one to learn first is the C shape at the nut.
5 of them sit on strings 5-3-2-1, 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 Abmaj7b5 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 9 (Bb) or the 13 (F).
All 5 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- 435533, 3rd fret, Ab, root position, top note G, barred
- 4555x4, 4th fret, Ab, root position, top note Ab, barred
- xx6788, 6th fret, Ab, root position, top note C, all fretted
- x-11-10-12-13-10, 10th fret, Ab, root position, top note D, all fretted
- x-11-12-12-13-x, 11th fret, Ab, root position, top note C, all fretted
How to use Abmaj7b5
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Abmaj7b5 is Bbm7 to Eb7 — the ii and the V of Ab — and Eb7 shares its third and seventh with Bbm7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Abmaj7b5 belongs to C minor (the ♭VI) and Eb major (the IV, the subdominant).
What to play over Abmaj7b5
Every note of Abmaj7b5 is in Ab lydian.
Chords near Abmaj7b5
Change one note of Abmaj7b5 and you have Abmaj7 (the flat fifth becomes the fifth), Abmaj7#5 (the flat fifth becomes the sharp fifth), AbmMaj7b5 (the major third becomes the minor third) or Ab7b5 (the major seventh becomes the flat seventh).
Abmaj7b5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major 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.