Baug guitar chord
Three notes across one string set.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Baug — triad voicings
Baug is B, D# and G — B with the fifth raised a semitone.
It sounds stretched, and suspended between keys. Its commonest job is passing between a major triad and its sixth or seventh, with the raised fifth as a single voice walking up.
Baug notes and formula
| B | D# | G |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♯5 |
Passing chord — it belongs to no key in particular.
Also written B+, B(#5) or B augmented. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Baug
Three notes on one string set. No seventh, so nothing is claimed about the chord beyond its quality.
Thin on their own, excellent over a bass line or against someone else’s harmony.
Baug has 46 of them, on the low-middle three, the high-middle three, the bottom three strings, the middle four strings, the top four strings, the bottom four strings, the top three strings, strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: B in the bass, D# in the bass and F## in the bass. The one to learn first is the B shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
6 of them sit on the middle 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 x2100x — 2 open strings and only 2 fretted notes. 1 of the 9 shapes here sits in open position. None of them needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x2100x | open position | B, root position | B | 2 open strings |
| x2x443 | 2nd fret | B, root position | G | all fretted |
| xxx443 | 3rd fret | B, root position | G | all fretted |
| x2544x | 2nd fret | B, root position | D# | all fretted |
| 76544x | 4th fret | B, root position | D# | all fretted |
| 7x9887 | 7th fret | B, root position | B | all fretted |
| xx9887 | 7th fret | B, root position | B | all fretted |
| x-x-13-12-12-11 | 11th fret | D#, 1st inversion | D# | all fretted |
| x-14-13-12-12-x | 12th fret | B, root position | B | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 1 open string voicings, each on its own page.
What to play over Baug
Every note of Baug is in B whole tone and B altered.
Chords near Baug
Change one note of Baug and you have B (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth), Bmaj7#5 (add the major seventh) or Baug7 (add the flat seventh).
Baug is a augmented chord — root, major third, sharp fifth. Augmented chords on every root.
On Baug’s sound and use this page follows Stefan Kostka, Dorothy Payne & Byron Almén, Tonal Harmony (McGraw-Hill, 8th ed., 2018). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.