Dmaj7b5 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 Dmaj7b5 — drop 3 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
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.
Dmaj7b5 has 9 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, 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 F# shape at the nut.
5 of them sit on strings 6-4-3-2, 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, 13 drop 2 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.