Abmaj7#5 guitar chord
Root, third and seventh: the guide tones fix the quality, so the fifth is dropped. That is what leaves a string free, so pick a tension to put on top.
- Tap a note to hear it
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- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Abmaj7#5 — shell voicings
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
Root, third and seventh. The third and seventh, the guide tones, are what make the chord major, minor or dominant, so the fifth can go: it says nothing the symbol needs.
Three notes means a spare string, which is the real point. Put a tension on it.
Abmaj7#5 has 2 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from the 4th fret up to the 11th — all in one inversion, so the bass note never moves. The one to learn first is the Ab shape at the 4th fret.
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 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.