Ebaug guitar chord
Three notes across one string set.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Ebaug — triad voicings
Ebaug is Eb, G and B — Eb with the fifth raised a semitone.
It sounds stretched, and suspended between keys. Its commonest job is passing between a major triad and its sixth or seventh, with the raised fifth as a single voice walking up.
Ebaug notes and formula
| Eb | G | B |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♯5 |
Passing chord — it belongs to no key in particular.
Also written Eb+, Eb(#5) or Eb augmented. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Ebaug
Three notes on one string set. No seventh, so nothing is claimed about the chord beyond its quality.
Thin on their own, excellent over a bass line or against someone else’s harmony.
Ebaug has 46 of them, on the high-middle three, the bottom three strings, the low-middle three, the top four strings, the bottom four strings, the middle four strings, the top three strings, strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Eb in the bass, G in the bass and B in the bass. The one to learn first is the Eb shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
6 of them sit on the top 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 xxx887 — only 3 fretted notes. None of the shapes for Ebaug uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 3rd fret. None of them needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 3rd fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| xx5443 | 3rd fret | G, 1st inversion | G | all fretted |
| x6544x | 4th fret | Eb, root position | Eb | all fretted |
| x6x887 | 6th fret | Eb, root position | B | all fretted |
| x6988x | 6th fret | Eb, root position | G | all fretted |
| xxx887 | 7th fret | Eb, root position | B | all fretted |
| 11-10-9-8-8-x | 8th fret | Eb, root position | G | all fretted |
| 11-x-13-12-12-11 | 11th fret | Eb, root position | Eb | all fretted |
| x-x-13-12-12-11 | 11th fret | Eb, root position | Eb | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 2 open string voicings, each on its own page.
What to play over Ebaug
Every note of Ebaug is in Eb whole tone and Eb altered.
Chords near Ebaug
Change one note of Ebaug and you have Eb (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth), Ebmaj7#5 (add the major seventh) or Ebaug7 (add the flat seventh).
Ebaug is a augmented chord — root, major third, sharp fifth. Augmented chords on every root.
On Ebaug’s sound and use this page follows Stefan Kostka, Dorothy Payne & Byron Almén, Tonal Harmony (McGraw-Hill, 8th ed., 2018). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.