About C#maj7#5 — drop 2 voicings
C#maj7#5 is C#, E#, A and B# — C#maj7 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.
C#maj7#5 notes and formula
| C# | E# | A | B# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♯5 | 7 |
Tonic — the lydian augmented sound.
Also written C#M7#5, C#Δ7#5, C#+M7 or C#maj7(#5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play C#maj7#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.
C#maj7#5 has 13 of them, on the middle four strings, the bottom four strings and the top four strings, from the 2nd fret up to the 14th — 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 2nd fret, 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 x435x5 — no barre and low, at the 3rd fret. None of the shapes for C#maj7#5 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 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x43211 | 1st fret | C#, root position | E# | all fretted |
| x435x5 | 3rd fret | C#, root position | A | all fretted |
| x4756x | 4th fret | C#, root position | E# | all fretted |
| xx7668 | 6th fret | G##, 2nd inversion | B# | all fretted |
| x-x-11-10-10-8 | 8th fret | C#, root position | B# | all fretted |
| 9-x-10-10-10-9 | 9th fret | C#, root position | C# | barred |
| x-x-11-14-13-13 | 11th fret | C#, root position | E# | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 2 shell and 9 drop 3 voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of C#maj7#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 C#maj7#5
How you get to it. The turn that lands on C#maj7#5 is D#m7 to G#7 — the ii and the V of C# — and G#7 shares its third and seventh with D#m7, so the hand barely moves between them.
Chords near C#maj7#5
Change one note of C#maj7#5 and you have C#maj7 (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth), C#maj7b5 (the sharp fifth becomes a flat fifth), C#aug (drop the major seventh) or C#aug7 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
C#maj7#5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On C#maj7#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.