About Emaj7b5 — drop 2 voicings
Emaj7b5 is E, G#, Bb and D# — Emaj7 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.
Emaj7b5 notes and formula
| E | G# | Bb | D# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Coloured tonic — rare, and unstable for a major chord.
Also written EM7b5, EΔ7b5 or Emaj7(b5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Emaj7b5
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.
Emaj7b5 has 13 of them, on the bottom four strings, the top four strings and the middle four strings, from open position up to the 12th — 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 E shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the bottom 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 xx2344 — no barre and down at the nut. 1 of the 7 shapes here sits in open position. 4 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 011140 | open position | E, root position | E | barred |
| xx2344 | 2nd fret | E, root position | G# | all fretted |
| x76896 | 6th fret | E, root position | Bb | all fretted |
| x7889x | 7th fret | E, root position | G# | all fretted |
| 0-11-13-13-11-11 | 11th fret | E, root position | D# | barred |
| 12-11-13-13-11-11 | 11th fret | E, root position | D# | barred |
| 12-13-13-13-x-12 | 12th fret | E, root position | E | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 6 shell and 8 drop 3 voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Emaj7b5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (F#) and the 13 (C#).
How to use Emaj7b5
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Emaj7b5 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 Emaj7b5 belongs to Ab minor (the ♭VI) and B major (the IV, the subdominant).
What to play over Emaj7b5
Every note of Emaj7b5 is in E lydian.
Chords near Emaj7b5
Change one note of Emaj7b5 and you have Emaj7 (the flat fifth becomes a fifth), Emaj7#5 (the flat fifth becomes a sharp fifth), EmMaj7b5 (the major third becomes a minor third), E7b5 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or E/D# (the flat fifth becomes a fifth).
Emaj7b5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Emaj7b5’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.