BbmMaj7 guitar chord
Root, third and seventh: the guide tones fix the quality, so the fifth is dropped. That is what leaves a string free, so pick a tension to put on top.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About BbmMaj7 — shell voicings
BbmMaj7 is Bb, Db, F and A — Bbm with the major seventh added on top.
It sounds tense and wrong-footed. A minor triad carrying a major seventh: the semitone under the root over a minor chord is the first bar of a line cliché.
BbmMaj7 notes and formula
| Bb | Db | F | A |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 |
Minor tonic — the tonic of the melodic minor.
Also written BbmM7, Bbm(maj7), Bb-Δ7 or BbminMaj7. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play BbmMaj7
Root, third and seventh. The third and seventh, the guide tones, are what make the chord major, minor or dominant, so the fifth can go: it says nothing the symbol needs.
Three notes means a spare string, which is the real point. Put a tension on it.
BbmMaj7 has 5 of them, on strings 5-3-2, the bottom three strings, strings 6-4-3 and the low-middle three, from open position up to the 13th — all in one inversion, so the bass note never moves. The one to learn first is the Bb shape at the nut.
Start with xx8665 — no barre and low, at the 5th fret. None of the shapes for BbmMaj7 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 1 of the 7 needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x13221 | 1st fret | Bb, root position | F | all fretted |
| x43365 | 3rd fret | Db, 1st inversion | A | all fretted |
| xx8665 | 5th fret | Bb, root position | A | all fretted |
| 687666 | 6th fret | Bb, root position | Bb | barred |
| x-x-8-10-10-9 | 8th fret | Bb, root position | Db | all fretted |
| x-13-11-10-10-x | 10th fret | Bb, root position | A | all fretted |
| x-13-15-14-14-13 | 13th fret | Bb, root position | F | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 13 drop 2, 9 drop 3 and 2 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of BbmMaj7, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (C), the 11 (Eb) and the 13 (G).
How to use BbmMaj7
How you get to it. The turn that lands on BbmMaj7 is Cm7♭5 to F7♭9: the ii and the V of Bb minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
What to play over BbmMaj7
Every note of BbmMaj7 is in Bb harmonic minor and Bb melodic minor.
Chords near BbmMaj7
Change one note of BbmMaj7 and you have Bbm (drop the major seventh), Bbmaj7 (the minor third becomes a major third), Bbm6 (the major seventh becomes a sixth), Bbm7 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh), BbmMaj7b5 (the fifth becomes a flat fifth) or BbmMaj9 (add the ninth).
BbmMaj7 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On BbmMaj7’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.