Dmaj7b5 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Dmaj7b5 — drop 2 voicings
Dmaj7b5 is D, F#, Ab and C# — Dmaj7 with the fifth lowered a semitone.
It sounds hollow and hard to place. Far more often met spelled the other way round, as a ♯11 over a chord that kept its fifth.
Dmaj7b5 notes and formula
| D | F# | Ab | C# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Coloured tonic — rare, and unstable for a major chord.
Also written DM7b5, DΔ7b5 or Dmaj7(b5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Dmaj7b5
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.
Dmaj7b5 has 13 of them, on the top four strings, the bottom four strings and the middle four strings, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: D in the bass, F# in the bass, Ab in the bass and C# in the bass. The one to learn first is the D shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the top 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 xx0122 — no barre and 1 open string. 1 of the 6 shapes here sits in open position. 2 of the 6 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| xx0122 | open position | D, root position | F# | 1 open string |
| x54674 | 4th fret | D, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| x5667x | 5th fret | D, root position | F# | all fretted |
| 10-9-11-11-9-9 | 9th fret | D, root position | C# | barred |
| 10-11-11-11-x-10 | 10th fret | D, root position | D | barred |
| x-x-12-13-14-14 | 12th fret | D, root position | F# | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 5 shell, 9 drop 3 and 3 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Dmaj7b5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (E) and the 13 (B).
How to use Dmaj7b5
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Dmaj7b5 is Em7 to A7 — the ii and the V of D — and A7 shares its third and seventh with Em7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Dmaj7b5 belongs to F# minor (the ♭VI) and A major (the IV, the subdominant).
What to play over Dmaj7b5
Every note of Dmaj7b5 is in D lydian.
Chords near Dmaj7b5
Change one note of Dmaj7b5 and you have Dmaj7 (the flat fifth becomes a fifth), Dmaj7#5 (the flat fifth becomes a sharp fifth), DmMaj7b5 (the major third becomes a minor third) or D7b5 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
Dmaj7b5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Dmaj7b5’s sound and use this page follows Robert Rawlins & Nor Eddine Bahha, Jazzology (Hal Leonard, 2005). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.