EmMaj7b5 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About EmMaj7b5 — drop 3 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.
Rare tonic — a half-diminished chord with its seventh raised instead.
EmMaj7b5 notes and formula
| E | G | Bb | D# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | ♭5 | 7 |
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
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.
EmMaj7b5 has 8 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from open position up to the 11th — 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.
4 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 EmMaj7b5 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 11 (A) or the b13 (C).
All 6 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- 0110x0, open position, E, root position, top note E, 3 open strings
- xx2343, 2nd fret, E, root position, top note G, all fretted
- x7x886, 6th fret, E, root position, top note Bb, all fretted
- x7888x, 7th fret, E, root position, top note G, barred
- 12-13-x-12-11-11, 11th fret, E, root position, top note D#, all fretted
- 12-13-13-12-x-12, 12th fret, E, root position, top note E, barred
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 the diminished seventh), Emaj7b5 (the minor third becomes the major third), Em7b5 (the major seventh becomes the flat seventh), EmMaj7 (the flat fifth becomes the fifth) or Em/D# (the flat fifth becomes the fifth).
EmMaj7b5 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.