About EbmMaj7 — drop 2 voicings
EbmMaj7 is Eb, Gb, Bb and D — Ebm with the major seventh added on top.
It sounds tense and wrong-footed. A minor triad carrying a major seventh: the semitone under the root over a minor chord is the first bar of a line cliché.
EbmMaj7 notes and formula
| Eb | Gb | Bb | D |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 |
Minor tonic — the tonic of the melodic minor.
Also written EbmM7, Ebm(maj7), Eb-Δ7 or EbminMaj7. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play EbmMaj7
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.
EbmMaj7 has 13 of them, on the top four strings, the middle four strings and the bottom four strings, 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 D in the bass. The one to learn first is the Eb shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 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 xx1332 — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for EbmMaj7 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 1 of the 6 needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| xx1332 | 1st fret | Eb, root position | Gb | all fretted |
| x6433x | 3rd fret | Eb, root position | D | all fretted |
| x68776 | 6th fret | Eb, root position | Bb | all fretted |
| x-9-8-8-11-10 | 8th fret | Gb, 1st inversion | D | all fretted |
| x-x-13-11-11-10 | 10th fret | Eb, root position | D | all fretted |
| 11-13-12-11-11-11 | 11th fret | Eb, root position | Eb | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 shell and 9 drop 3 voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of EbmMaj7, 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 EbmMaj7
How you get to it. The turn that lands on EbmMaj7 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.
What to play over EbmMaj7
Every note of EbmMaj7 is in Eb harmonic minor and Eb melodic minor.
Chords near EbmMaj7
Change one note of EbmMaj7 and you have Ebm (drop the major seventh), Ebmaj7 (the minor third becomes a major third), Ebm6 (the major seventh becomes a sixth), Ebm7 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh), EbmMaj7b5 (the fifth becomes a flat fifth) or EbmMaj9 (add the ninth).
EbmMaj7 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On EbmMaj7’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.