About Ebm7 — drop 3 voicings
Ebm7 is Eb, Gb, Bb and Db — Ebm with the flat seventh added.
It sounds smooth and unhurried. The ii of every major key, so most progressions you already know begin on one of these.
Ebm7 notes and formula
| Eb | Gb | Bb | Db |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | ♭7 |
Pre-dominant — the ii of a major key, and a tonic in its own right.
Also written Ebmin7, Eb-7 or Eb minor 7. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Ebm7
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.
Ebm7 has 9 of them, on 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, Gb in the bass, Bb in the bass and Db in the bass. The one to learn first is the Gb 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 xx1322 — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for Ebm7 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 2 of the 6 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| xx1322 | 1st fret | Eb, root position | Gb | all fretted |
| x6464x | 4th fret | Eb, root position | Eb | all fretted |
| x6467x | 4th fret | Eb, root position | Gb | all fretted |
| x68676 | 6th fret | Eb, root position | Bb | barred |
| xx8879 | 7th fret | Bb, 2nd inversion | Db | all fretted |
| 11-13-11-11-11-11 | 11th fret | Eb, root position | Eb | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 5 shell and 13 drop 2 voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Ebm7, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (F), the 11 (Ab) and the 13 (C).
How to use Ebm7
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Ebm7 is Fm7♭5 to Bb7♭9: the ii and the V of Eb minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Ebm7 belongs to C# major (the ii), Eb minor (the i), F# major (the vi), Ab minor (the v), Bb minor (the iv) and B major (the iii).
What to play over Ebm7
Every note of Ebm7 is in Eb minor pentatonic, Eb blues, Eb dorian, Eb natural minor and Eb phrygian.
Chords near Ebm7
Change one note of Ebm7 and you have Ebm (drop the flat seventh), Ebm6 (the flat seventh becomes a sixth), Ebm7b5 (the fifth becomes a flat fifth), Ebm9 (add the ninth), EbmMaj7 (the flat seventh becomes a major seventh) or Ebmadd9 (the flat seventh becomes a ninth).
Ebm7 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Ebm7’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.