C#mMaj7 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
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About C#mMaj7 — drop 3 voicings
C#mMaj7 is C#, E, G# and B# — C#m 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.
C#mMaj7 notes and formula
| C# | E | G# | B# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 |
Minor tonic — the tonic of the melodic minor.
Also written C#mM7, C#m(maj7), C#-Δ7 or C#minMaj7. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play C#mMaj7
The same operation one voice further down: the third voice from the top falls an octave and becomes the bass.
That leaves a bigger hole under the top three notes, so a string gets skipped: the muted string in the middle is the shape, not a mistake.
C#mMaj7 has 9 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from open position up to the 12th — 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.
5 of them sit on strings 5-3-2-1, 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 x4211x — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for C#mMaj7 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 1 of the 6 needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x4211x | 1st fret | C#, root position | B# | all fretted |
| x46554 | 4th fret | C#, root position | G# | all fretted |
| x76698 | 6th fret | E, 1st inversion | B# | all fretted |
| x-x-11-9-9-8 | 8th fret | C#, root position | B# | all fretted |
| 9-11-10-9-9-9 | 9th fret | C#, root position | C# | barred |
| x-x-11-13-13-12 | 11th fret | C#, root position | E | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 shell and 13 drop 2 voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of C#mMaj7, 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#mMaj7
How you get to it. The turn that lands on C#mMaj7 is D#m7♭5 to G#7♭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 C#mMaj7
Every note of C#mMaj7 is in C# harmonic minor and C# melodic minor.
Chords near C#mMaj7
Change one note of C#mMaj7 and you have C#m (drop the major seventh), C#maj7 (the minor third becomes a major third), C#m6 (the major seventh becomes a sixth), C#m7 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh), C#mMaj7b5 (the fifth becomes a flat fifth) or C#mMaj9 (add the ninth).
C#mMaj7 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On C#mMaj7’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.