CmMaj7 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
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- Fingers, notes or intervals
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About CmMaj7 — shell voicings
CmMaj7 is C, Eb, G and B — Cm 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.
CmMaj7 notes and formula
| C | Eb | G | B |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 |
Minor tonic — the tonic of the melodic minor.
Also written CmM7, Cm(maj7), C-Δ7 or CminMaj7. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play CmMaj7
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.
CmMaj7 has 4 of them, on the low-middle three, strings 5-3-2, the bottom three strings and strings 6-4-3, from open position up to the 8th — all in one inversion, so the bass note never moves. The one to learn first is the C shape at the nut.
Start with x3100x — no barre and 2 open strings. 1 of the 7 shapes here sits in open position. 1 of the 7 needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x3100x | open position | C, root position | B | 2 open strings |
| x35443 | 3rd fret | C, root position | G | all fretted |
| x65587 | 5th fret | Eb, 1st inversion | B | all fretted |
| x-x-10-8-8-7 | 7th fret | C, root position | B | all fretted |
| 8-10-9-8-8-8 | 8th fret | C, root position | C | barred |
| x-x-10-12-12-11 | 10th fret | C, root position | Eb | all fretted |
| x-15-13-12-12-x | 12th fret | C, root position | B | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 13 drop 2, 8 drop 3 and 3 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of CmMaj7, 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 CmMaj7
How you get to it. The turn that lands on CmMaj7 is Dm7♭5 to G7♭9: the ii and the V of C minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
What to play over CmMaj7
Every note of CmMaj7 is in C harmonic minor and C melodic minor.
Chords near CmMaj7
Change one note of CmMaj7 and you have Cm (drop the major seventh), Cmaj7 (the minor third becomes a major third), Cm6 (the major seventh becomes a sixth), Cm7 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh), CmMaj7b5 (the fifth becomes a flat fifth) or CmMaj9 (add the ninth).
CmMaj7 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On CmMaj7’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.