About Emaj7 — drop 3 voicings
Emaj7 is E, G#, B and D# — E with the major seventh added on top.
It sounds lush, and only just resolved. The everyday tonic of jazz, bossa and neo-soul.
Emaj7 notes and formula
| E | G# | B | D# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 |
Tonic — a resting chord, but a soft one.
Also written EM7, EΔ7, EΔ, Ema7 or E major 7. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Emaj7
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.
Emaj7 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: E in the bass, G# in the bass, B in the bass and D# in the bass. The one to learn first is the B 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 021100 — no barre and 3 open strings. 1 of the 8 shapes here sits in open position. 4 of the 8 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 021100 | open position | E, root position | E | 3 open strings |
| xx2444 | 2nd fret | E, root position | G# | barred |
| x76444 | 4th fret | E, root position | G# | barred |
| x7685x | 5th fret | E, root position | E | all fretted |
| x79897 | 7th fret | E, root position | B | all fretted |
| x-x-x-9-9-11 | 9th fret | E, root position | D# | all fretted |
| x-x-9-9-9-11 | 9th fret | B, 2nd inversion | D# | barred |
| 12-14-13-13-12-12 | 12th fret | E, root position | E | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 6 shell and 14 drop 2 voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Emaj7, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (F#), the #11 (A#) and the 13 (C#).
How to use Emaj7
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Emaj7 is F#m7 to B7 — the ii and the V of E — and B7 shares its third and seventh with F#m7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Emaj7 belongs to C# minor (the ♭III), E major (the I, the tonic), Ab minor (the ♭VI) and B major (the IV, the subdominant).
What to play over Emaj7
Every note of Emaj7 is in E major and E lydian.
Chords near Emaj7
Change one note of Emaj7 and you have E (drop the major seventh), Emaj7b5 (the fifth becomes a flat fifth), Emaj7#5 (the fifth becomes a sharp fifth), Emaj9 (add the ninth), EmMaj7 (the major third becomes a minor third) or Eadd9 (the major seventh becomes a ninth).
Emaj7 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Emaj7’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.