Em7b5 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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- Fingers, notes or intervals
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About Em7b5 — drop 3 voicings
Em7b5 is E, G, Bb and D — Em7 with the fifth lowered a semitone.
It sounds hollow, and unmistakably going somewhere. It walks straight into an altered dominant, which is where you will nearly always meet it.
Pre-dominant — the ii of a minor key.
Em7b5 notes and formula
| E | G | Bb | D |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | ♭5 | ♭7 |
Also written Eø, Eø7, Em7-5, Em7(b5) or E half diminished. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Em7b5
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.
Em7b5 has 10 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from open position up to the 14th — every inversion the chord has: E in the bass, G in the bass, Bb in the bass and D in the bass. The one to learn first is the Bb 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.
Play Em7b5 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 11 (A) or the b13 (C).
All 9 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- 012333, open position, E, root position, top note G, barred
- xx2333, 2nd fret, E, root position, top note G, barred
- x75756, 5th fret, E, root position, top note Bb, all fretted
- x7878x, 7th fret, E, root position, top note G, all fretted
- x-x-8-9-8-10, 8th fret, Bb, 2nd inversion, top note D, all fretted
- 12-x-x-12-11-10, 10th fret, E, root position, top note D, all fretted
- 12-x-12-12-11-x, 11th fret, E, root position, top note Bb, barred
- 12-13-14-12-15-12, 12th fret, E, root position, top note E, barred
- x-x-14-15-15-15, 14th fret, E, root position, top note G, barred
How to use Em7b5
Em7b5 is the ii of D minor, which is where it is nearly always found: half-diminished, then an altered dominant, then the minor tonic.
In which keys. Every note of Em7b5 belongs to D minor (the ii°, the supertonic) and F major (the vii°, the leading tone).
What to play over Em7b5
Every note of Em7b5 is in E blues, E locrian, E altered and E half-whole diminished.
Chords near Em7b5
Change one note of Em7b5 and you have Edim (drop the flat seventh), Edim7 (the flat seventh becomes the diminished seventh), Em7 (the flat fifth becomes the fifth), EmMaj7b5 (the flat seventh becomes the major seventh), E7b5 (the minor third becomes the major third) or Em/D (the flat fifth becomes the fifth).
Em7b5 is a diminished chord — root, minor third, flat fifth. Diminished and half-diminished chords on every root.
The common shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in how this site is built.