Cmaj7b5 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
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- Fingers, notes or intervals
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About Cmaj7b5 — drop 2 voicings
Cmaj7b5 is C, E, Gb and B — Cmaj7 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.
Cmaj7b5 notes and formula
| C | E | Gb | B |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Coloured tonic — rare, and unstable for a major chord.
Also written CM7b5, CΔ7b5 or Cmaj7(b5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Cmaj7b5
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.
Cmaj7b5 has 12 of them, on the bottom four strings, the middle four strings and the top four strings, from open position up to the 11th — every inversion the chord has: C in the bass, E in the bass, Gb in the bass and B in the bass. The one to learn first is the Gb shape at the 2nd fret, which is the easiest grip here.
4 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 x32402 — no barre and 1 open string. 1 of the 6 shapes here sits in open position. 2 of the 6 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 12th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x32402 | open position | C, root position | Gb | 1 open string |
| x32452 | 2nd fret | C, root position | Gb | all fretted |
| x3445x | 3rd fret | C, root position | E | all fretted |
| 879977 | 7th fret | C, root position | B | barred |
| 8999x8 | 8th fret | C, root position | C | barred |
| x-x-10-11-12-12 | 10th fret | C, root position | E | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 5 shell, 8 drop 3 and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Cmaj7b5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (D) and the 13 (A).
How to use Cmaj7b5
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Cmaj7b5 is Dm7 to G7 — the ii and the V of C — and G7 shares its third and seventh with Dm7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Cmaj7b5 belongs to E minor (the ♭VI) and G major (the IV, the subdominant).
What to play over Cmaj7b5
Every note of Cmaj7b5 is in C lydian.
Chords near Cmaj7b5
Change one note of Cmaj7b5 and you have Cmaj7 (the flat fifth becomes a fifth), Cmaj7#5 (the flat fifth becomes a sharp fifth), CmMaj7b5 (the major third becomes a minor third) or C7b5 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
Cmaj7b5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Cmaj7b5’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.