Ebmaj7b5 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
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- Fingers, notes or intervals
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About Ebmaj7b5 — drop 2 voicings
Ebmaj7b5 is Eb, G, A and D — Ebmaj7 with the fifth lowered a semitone.
It sounds hollow and hard to place. Far more often met spelled the other way round, as a ♯11 over a chord that kept its fifth.
Ebmaj7b5 notes and formula
| Eb | G | A | D |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Coloured tonic — rare, and unstable for a major chord.
Also written EbM7b5, EbΔ7b5 or Ebmaj7(b5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Ebmaj7b5
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.
Ebmaj7b5 has 14 of them, on the middle four strings, the top four strings and the bottom four strings, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Eb in the bass, G in the bass, Bbb in the bass and D in the bass. The one to learn first is the Bbb shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the middle 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 xx1233 — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for Ebmaj7b5 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 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| xx1233 | 1st fret | Eb, root position | G | all fretted |
| x65785 | 5th fret | Eb, root position | A | all fretted |
| x6778x | 6th fret | Eb, root position | G | all fretted |
| 11-10-12-12-10-10 | 10th fret | Eb, root position | D | barred |
| 11-12-12-12-x-11 | 11th fret | Eb, root position | Eb | barred |
| x-x-13-14-15-15 | 13th fret | Eb, root position | G | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 6 shell, 9 drop 3 and 5 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Ebmaj7b5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (F) and the 13 (C).
How to use Ebmaj7b5
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Ebmaj7b5 is Fm7 to Bb7 — the ii and the V of Eb — and Bb7 shares its third and seventh with Fm7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Ebmaj7b5 belongs to G minor (the ♭VI) and Bb major (the IV, the subdominant).
What to play over Ebmaj7b5
Every note of Ebmaj7b5 is in Eb lydian.
Chords near Ebmaj7b5
Change one note of Ebmaj7b5 and you have Ebmaj7 (the flat fifth becomes a fifth), Ebmaj7#5 (the flat fifth becomes a sharp fifth), EbmMaj7b5 (the major third becomes a minor third) or Eb7b5 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
Ebmaj7b5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Ebmaj7b5’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.