AbmMaj7 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
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About AbmMaj7 — drop 2 voicings
AbmMaj7 is Ab, Cb, Eb and G — Abm with the major seventh added on top.
It sounds tense and wrong-footed. A minor triad carrying a major seventh: the semitone under the root over a minor chord is the first bar of a line cliché.
AbmMaj7 notes and formula
| Ab | Cb | Eb | G |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 |
Minor tonic — the tonic of the melodic minor.
Also written AbmM7, Abm(maj7), Ab-Δ7 or AbminMaj7. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play AbmMaj7
Take the four notes stacked as close together as they go, then drop the second voice from the top an octave. The gap it opens is what makes the chord sound like a chord rather than a cluster.
It lands on four adjacent strings, which is why it is the workhorse voicing on guitar.
AbmMaj7 has 14 of them, on the top four strings, the bottom four strings and the middle four strings, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Ab in the bass, Cb in the bass, Eb in the bass and G in the bass. The one to learn first is the Eb shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the top 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 xx6443 — no barre and low, at the 3rd fret. None of the shapes for AbmMaj7 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 1 of the 6 needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x21143 | 1st fret | Cb, 1st inversion | G | all fretted |
| xx6443 | 3rd fret | Ab, root position | G | all fretted |
| 465444 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Ab | barred |
| xx6887 | 6th fret | Ab, root position | Cb | all fretted |
| x-11-9-8-8-x | 8th fret | Ab, root position | G | all fretted |
| x-11-13-12-12-11 | 11th fret | Ab, root position | Eb | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 shell, 9 drop 3 and 5 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of AbmMaj7, 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 AbmMaj7
How you get to it. The turn that lands on AbmMaj7 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.
What to play over AbmMaj7
Every note of AbmMaj7 is in Ab harmonic minor and Ab melodic minor.
Chords near AbmMaj7
Change one note of AbmMaj7 and you have Abm (drop the major seventh), Abmaj7 (the minor third becomes a major third), Abm6 (the major seventh becomes a sixth), Abm7 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh), AbmMaj7b5 (the fifth becomes a flat fifth) or AbmMaj9 (add the ninth).
AbmMaj7 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On AbmMaj7’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.