About EmMaj7b5 — drop 2 voicings
EmMaj7b5 is E, G, Bb and D# — Em7b5 with the seventh raised a semitone.
It sounds brittle and impossible to mistake. Scarce enough that most players meet it as a passing sonority rather than as a chord they chose.
EmMaj7b5 notes and formula
| E | G | Bb | D# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Rare tonic — a half-diminished chord with its seventh raised instead.
Also written EmM7b5 or Em(maj7)b5. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play EmMaj7b5
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.
EmMaj7b5 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 0110x0 — no barre and 3 open strings. 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 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0110x0 | open position | E, root position | E | 3 open strings |
| xx2343 | 2nd fret | E, root position | G | all fretted |
| x7x886 | 6th fret | E, root position | Bb | all fretted |
| x7888x | 7th fret | E, root position | G | barred |
| 12-13-x-12-11-11 | 11th fret | E, root position | D# | all fretted |
| 12-13-13-12-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 EmMaj7b5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (A) and the b13 (C).
What to play over EmMaj7b5
Every note of EmMaj7b5 is in E diminished.
Chords near EmMaj7b5
Change one note of EmMaj7b5 and you have Edim (drop the major seventh), Edim7 (the major seventh becomes a sixth), Emaj7b5 (the minor third becomes a major third), Em7b5 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh), EmMaj7 (the flat fifth becomes a fifth) or Em/D# (the flat fifth becomes a fifth).
EmMaj7b5 is a diminished chord — root, minor third, flat fifth. Diminished and half-diminished chords on every root.
On EmMaj7b5’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.