Fmaj7b5 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Fmaj7b5 — drop 2 voicings
Fmaj7b5 is F, A, Cb and E — Fmaj7 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.
Fmaj7b5 notes and formula
| F | A | Cb | E |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Coloured tonic — rare, and unstable for a major chord.
Also written FM7b5, FΔ7b5 or Fmaj7(b5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Fmaj7b5
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.
Fmaj7b5 has 14 of them, on the top four strings, the bottom four strings and the middle four strings, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: F in the bass, A in the bass, Cb in the bass and E in the bass. The one to learn first is the E 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 102200 — no barre and 3 open strings. 1 of the 7 shapes here sits in open position. 3 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 102200 | open position | F, root position | E | 3 open strings |
| 1222x1 | 1st fret | F, root position | F | barred |
| xx3455 | 3rd fret | F, root position | A | all fretted |
| x-8-7-9-10-7 | 7th fret | F, root position | Cb | all fretted |
| x-8-9-9-10-x | 8th fret | F, root position | A | all fretted |
| 13-12-14-14-12-12 | 12th fret | F, root position | E | barred |
| 13-14-14-14-x-x | 13th fret | F, root position | A | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 6 shell, 9 drop 3 and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Fmaj7b5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (G) and the 13 (D).
How to use Fmaj7b5
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Fmaj7b5 is Gm7 to C7 — the ii and the V of F — and C7 shares its third and seventh with Gm7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Fmaj7b5 belongs to C major (the IV, the subdominant) and A minor (the ♭VI).
What to play over Fmaj7b5
Every note of Fmaj7b5 is in F lydian.
Chords near Fmaj7b5
Change one note of Fmaj7b5 and you have Fmaj7 (the flat fifth becomes a fifth), Fmaj7#5 (the flat fifth becomes a sharp fifth), FmMaj7b5 (the major third becomes a minor third), F7b5 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or F/E (the flat fifth becomes a fifth).
Fmaj7b5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Fmaj7b5’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.