AbmMaj7b5 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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- Fingers, notes or intervals
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About AbmMaj7b5 — drop 2 voicings
AbmMaj7b5 is Ab, Cb, D and G — Abm7b5 with the seventh raised a semitone.
It sounds brittle and impossible to mistake. Scarce enough that most players meet it as a passing sonority rather than as a chord they chose.
AbmMaj7b5 notes and formula
| Ab | Cb | D | G |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Rare tonic — a half-diminished chord with its seventh raised instead.
Also written AbmM7b5 or Abm(maj7)b5. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play AbmMaj7b5
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.
AbmMaj7b5 has 14 of them, on the top four strings, the bottom four strings and the middle four strings, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: Ab in the bass, Cb in the bass, Ebb in the bass and G in the bass. The one to learn first is the Ebb 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 xx6787 — no barre. None of the shapes for AbmMaj7b5 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 3rd fret. 2 of the 5 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 3rd fret to the 12th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45x433 | 3rd fret | Ab, root position | G | all fretted |
| 4554x4 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Ab | barred |
| xx6787 | 6th fret | Ab, root position | Cb | all fretted |
| x-11-x-12-12-10 | 10th fret | Ab, root position | D | all fretted |
| x-11-12-12-12-x | 11th fret | Ab, root position | Cb | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 3 shell, 10 drop 3 and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of AbmMaj7b5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (Db) and the b13 (Fb).
What to play over AbmMaj7b5
Every note of AbmMaj7b5 is in Ab diminished.
Chords near AbmMaj7b5
Change one note of AbmMaj7b5 and you have Abdim (drop the major seventh), Abdim7 (the major seventh becomes a sixth), Abmaj7b5 (the minor third becomes a major third), Abm7b5 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or AbmMaj7 (the flat fifth becomes a fifth).
AbmMaj7b5 is a diminished chord — root, minor third, flat fifth. Diminished and half-diminished chords on every root.
On AbmMaj7b5’s sound and use this page follows Robert Rawlins & Nor Eddine Bahha, Jazzology (Hal Leonard, 2005). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.