Abmaj7#5 guitar chord
The standard grips this chord is usually shown with.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Abmaj7#5 — 2nd inversion
Abmaj7#5 is Ab, C, E and G — Abmaj7 with the fifth raised a semitone.
It sounds weightless, with no pull in it. Unlike an aug7 there is no flat seventh dragging it anywhere, so it colours a tonic rather than replacing it with a dominant.
Abmaj7#5 notes and formula
| Ab | C | E | G |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♯5 | 7 |
Tonic — the lydian augmented sound.
Also written AbM7#5, AbΔ7#5, Ab+M7 or Abmaj7(#5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Abmaj7#5
Abmaj7#5 in 2nd inversion puts E in the bass instead of Ab, the 5th of the chord. The notes are the same; what changes is what the bass line does, which is most of why you would reach for it — it lets the lowest voice move by step where the root would have jumped.
One of Abmaj7#5’s 9 common shapes does this: xx2113.
Start with xx2113 — no barre and down at the nut. 2 of the 9 shapes here sit in open position. 1 of the 9 needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| xx2113 | 1st fret | E, 2nd inversion | G | all fretted |
| 432010 | open position | Ab, root position | E | 2 open strings |
| 435050 | open position | Ab, root position | E | 2 open strings |
| xx6553 | 3rd fret | Ab, root position | G | all fretted |
| 4x5554 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Ab | barred |
| xx6988 | 6th fret | Ab, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-11-10-9-8-8 | 8th fret | Ab, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-11-10-12-x-12 | 10th fret | Ab, root position | E | all fretted |
| x-11-14-12-13-x | 11th fret | Ab, root position | C | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 2 shell, 14 drop 2, 9 drop 3 and 3 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Abmaj7#5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (Bb), the #11 (D) and the 13 (F).
How to use Abmaj7#5
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Abmaj7#5 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.
Chords near Abmaj7#5
Change one note of Abmaj7#5 and you have Abmaj7 (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth), Abmaj7b5 (the sharp fifth becomes a flat fifth), Abaug (drop the major seventh) or Abaug7 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
Abmaj7#5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Abmaj7#5’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.