Ebm7b5 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 Ebm7b5 — drop 3 voicings
Ebm7b5 is Eb, Gb, A and Db — Ebm7 with the fifth lowered a semitone.
It sounds hollow, and unmistakably going somewhere. It walks straight into an altered dominant, which is where you will nearly always meet it.
Pre-dominant — the ii of a minor key.
Ebm7b5 notes and formula
| Eb | Gb | A | Db |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | ♭5 | ♭7 |
Also written Ebø, Ebø7, Ebm7-5, Ebm7(b5) or Eb half diminished. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Ebm7b5
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.
Ebm7b5 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, Bbb 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.
Play Ebm7b5 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 11 (Ab) or the b13 (Cb).
All 8 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- xx1222, 1st fret, Eb, root position, top note Gb, barred
- x64645, 4th fret, Eb, root position, top note A, all fretted
- x6767x, 6th fret, Eb, root position, top note Gb, all fretted
- xx7879, 7th fret, Bbb, 2nd inversion, top note Db, all fretted
- 11-x-x-11-10-9, 9th fret, Eb, root position, top note Db, all fretted
- 11-x-11-11-10-x, 10th fret, Eb, root position, top note A, barred
- 11-12-13-11-14-11, 11th fret, Eb, root position, top note Eb, barred
- x-x-13-14-14-14, 13th fret, Eb, root position, top note Gb, barred
How to use Ebm7b5
Ebm7b5 is the ii of Db minor, which is where it is nearly always found: half-diminished, then an altered dominant, then the minor tonic.
In which keys. Every note of Ebm7b5 belongs to C# minor (the ii°, the supertonic) and E major (the vii°, the leading tone).
What to play over Ebm7b5
Every note of Ebm7b5 is in Eb blues, Eb locrian, Eb altered and Eb half-whole diminished.
Chords near Ebm7b5
Change one note of Ebm7b5 and you have Ebdim (drop the flat seventh), Ebdim7 (the flat seventh becomes the diminished seventh), Ebm7 (the flat fifth becomes the fifth), EbmMaj7b5 (the flat seventh becomes the major seventh) or Eb7b5 (the minor third becomes the major third).
Ebm7b5 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.