C#mMaj7 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.
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About C#mMaj7 — shell 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
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.
C#mMaj7 has 4 of them, on the low-middle three, strings 5-3-2, the bottom three strings and strings 6-4-3, from the 2nd fret up to the 9th — all in one inversion, so the bass note never moves. The one to learn first is the C# shape at the 2nd fret.
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 13 drop 2 and 9 drop 3 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.