About Bmaj7#5 — drop 2 voicings
Bmaj7#5 is B, D#, G and A# — Bmaj7 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.
Bmaj7#5 notes and formula
| B | D# | G | A# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♯5 | 7 |
Tonic — the lydian augmented sound.
Also written BM7#5, BΔ7#5, B+M7 or Bmaj7(#5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Bmaj7#5
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.
Bmaj7#5 has 15 of them, on the bottom four strings, the middle four strings and the top four strings, from open position up to the 13th — 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, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the bottom 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 x21303 — no barre and 1 open string. 1 of the 8 shapes here sits in open position. 1 of the 8 needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x21303 | open position | B, root position | G | 1 open string |
| x2534x | 2nd fret | B, root position | D# | all fretted |
| xx5446 | 4th fret | F##, 2nd inversion | A# | all fretted |
| 76808x | 6th fret | B, root position | G | 1 open string |
| xx9886 | 6th fret | B, root position | A# | all fretted |
| 7x8887 | 7th fret | B, root position | B | barred |
| x-x-9-12-11-11 | 9th fret | B, root position | D# | all fretted |
| x-14-13-12-11-11 | 11th fret | B, root position | D# | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 2 shell and 9 drop 3 voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Bmaj7#5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (C#), the #11 (E#) and the 13 (G#).
How to use Bmaj7#5
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Bmaj7#5 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.
Chords near Bmaj7#5
Change one note of Bmaj7#5 and you have Bmaj7 (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth), Bmaj7b5 (the sharp fifth becomes a flat fifth), Baug (drop the major seventh) or Baug7 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
Bmaj7#5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Bmaj7#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.