Bmaj7b5 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Bmaj7b5 — drop 3 voicings
Bmaj7b5 is B, D#, F and A# — Bmaj7 with the fifth lowered a semitone.
It sounds hollow and hard to place. Far more often met spelled the other way round, as a ♯11 over a chord that kept its fifth.
Coloured tonic — rare, and unstable for a major chord.
Bmaj7b5 notes and formula
| B | D# | F | A# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Also written BM7b5, BΔ7b5 or Bmaj7(b5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Bmaj7b5
The same operation one voice further down: the third voice from the top falls an octave and becomes the bass.
That leaves a bigger hole under the top three notes, so a string gets skipped: the muted string in the middle is the shape, not a mistake.
Bmaj7b5 has 9 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: B in the bass, D# in the bass, F in the bass and A# in the bass. The one to learn first is the F shape at the nut.
5 of them sit on strings 6-4-3-2, 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.
Play Bmaj7b5 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 9 (C#) or the 13 (G#).
All 6 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- x21341, 1st fret, B, root position, top note F, all fretted
- x2334x, 2nd fret, B, root position, top note D#, all fretted
- 768866, 6th fret, B, root position, top note A#, barred
- 78880x, 7th fret, B, root position, top note D#, barred
- 7888x7, 7th fret, B, root position, top note B, barred
- x-x-9-10-11-11, 9th fret, B, root position, top note D#, all fretted
How to use Bmaj7b5
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Bmaj7b5 is C#m7 to F#7 — the ii and the V of B — and F#7 shares its third and seventh with C#m7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Bmaj7b5 belongs to Eb minor (the ♭VI) and F# major (the IV, the subdominant).
What to play over Bmaj7b5
Every note of Bmaj7b5 is in B lydian.
Chords near Bmaj7b5
Change one note of Bmaj7b5 and you have Bmaj7 (the flat fifth becomes the fifth), Bmaj7#5 (the flat fifth becomes the sharp fifth), BmMaj7b5 (the major third becomes the minor third) or B7b5 (the major seventh becomes the flat seventh).
Bmaj7b5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
The common shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in how this site is built.