About Bb5 — triad voicings
Bb5 is Bb and F — Bb with the third taken out altogether.
It sounds blunt, and neither major nor minor. Distortion turns a real third to mud, which is why rock guitar plays this instead of a triad.
Bb5 notes and formula
| Bb | F |
|---|---|
| 1 | 5 |
Neutral — with no third it commits to no mode.
Also written Bb(no 3rd) or Bb power chord. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Bb5
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.
Bb5 has 25 of them, on the low-middle three, the bottom three strings, the bottom four strings, the top three strings, the high-middle three, strings 6-4-3-2, the top four strings, the middle four strings and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Bb in the bass and F in the bass. The one to learn first is the Bb shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
4 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.
Start with x13xxx — only 2 fretted notes and down at the nut. None of the shapes for Bb5 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. None of them needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x13xxx | 1st fret | Bb, root position | F | all fretted |
| 688xxx | 6th fret | Bb, root position | Bb | all fretted |
| x-13-15-x-x-x | 13th fret | Bb, root position | F | all fretted |
How to use Bb5
In which keys. Every note of Bb5 belongs to C minor (the ♭VII), C# major (the vi), D minor (the ♭VI), Eb major (the V), Eb minor (the v), F major (the IV), F minor (the iv), F# major (the iii), G minor (the ♭III), Ab major (the ii), Bb major (the I) and Bb minor (the i).
What to play over Bb5
Every note of Bb5 is in Bb major pentatonic, Bb minor pentatonic, Bb blues, Bb major and Bb lydian.
Chords near Bb5
Change one note of Bb5 and you have Bb (add the major third), Bbm (add the minor third), Bbsus2 (add the ninth) or Bbsus4 (add the fourth).
Bb5 is a suspended chord — root and fifth, with a second or fourth where the third would be — or nothing at all. Suspended and power chords on every root.
On Bb5’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.