Fmaj7b5 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
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About Fmaj7b5 — drop 3 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
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.
Fmaj7b5 has 9 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from open position up to the 12th — 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 Cb 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 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, 14 drop 2 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.