Cmaj7#5 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 Cmaj7#5 — drop 2 voicings
Cmaj7#5 is C, E, G# and B — Cmaj7 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.
Cmaj7#5 notes and formula
| C | E | G# | B |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♯5 | 7 |
Tonic — the lydian augmented sound.
Also written CM7#5, CΔ7#5, C+M7 or Cmaj7(#5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Cmaj7#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.
Cmaj7#5 has 13 of them, on the middle four strings, the bottom four strings and the top four strings, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: C in the bass, E in the bass, G# in the bass and B in the bass. The one to learn first is the B shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the middle 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 x32100 — no barre and 2 open strings. 2 of the 10 shapes here sit in open position. 1 of the 10 needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x32100 | open position | C, root position | E | 2 open strings |
| x324x4 | 2nd fret | C, root position | G# | all fretted |
| x36450 | open position | C, root position | E | 1 open string |
| 876500 | 5th fret | C, root position | E | 2 open strings |
| xx6557 | 5th fret | G#, 2nd inversion | B | all fretted |
| x-x-10-9-9-7 | 7th fret | C, root position | B | all fretted |
| 8-11-10-9-0-0 | 8th fret | C, root position | E | 2 open strings |
| 8x9998 | 8th fret | C, root position | C | barred |
| x-x-10-13-12-12 | 10th fret | C, root position | E | all fretted |
| x-15-14-13-12-12 | 12th fret | C, root position | E | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 2 shell, 9 drop 3 and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Cmaj7#5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (D), the #11 (F#) and the 13 (A).
How to use Cmaj7#5
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Cmaj7#5 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.
Chords near Cmaj7#5
Change one note of Cmaj7#5 and you have Cmaj7 (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth), Cmaj7b5 (the sharp fifth becomes a flat fifth), Caug (drop the major seventh) or Caug7 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
Cmaj7#5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Cmaj7#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.