F#mMaj7b5 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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About F#mMaj7b5 — drop 2 voicings
F#mMaj7b5 is F#, A, C and E# — F#m7b5 with the seventh raised a semitone.
It sounds brittle and impossible to mistake. Scarce enough that most players meet it as a passing sonority rather than as a chord they chose.
F#mMaj7b5 notes and formula
| F# | A | C | E# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Rare tonic — a half-diminished chord with its seventh raised instead.
Also written F#mM7b5 or F#m(maj7)b5. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play F#mMaj7b5
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.
F#mMaj7b5 has 14 of them, on the top four strings, the bottom four strings and the middle four strings, from open position up to the 14th — every inversion the chord has: F# in the bass, A in the bass, C 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 xx4565 — no barre and low, at the 4th fret. None of the shapes for F#mMaj7b5 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 3 of the 6 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2332x2 | 2nd fret | F#, root position | F# | barred |
| 23x211 | 1st fret | F#, root position | E# | all fretted |
| xx4565 | 4th fret | F#, root position | A | all fretted |
| x-9-x-10-10-8 | 8th fret | F#, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-9-10-10-10-x | 9th fret | F#, root position | A | barred |
| 14-15-15-14-x-14 | 14th fret | F#, root position | F# | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 shell, 9 drop 3 and 3 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of F#mMaj7b5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (B) and the b13 (D).
What to play over F#mMaj7b5
Every note of F#mMaj7b5 is in F# diminished.
Chords near F#mMaj7b5
Change one note of F#mMaj7b5 and you have F#dim (drop the major seventh), F#dim7 (the major seventh becomes a sixth), F#maj7b5 (the minor third becomes a major third), F#m7b5 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or F#mMaj7 (the flat fifth becomes a fifth).
F#mMaj7b5 is a diminished chord — root, minor third, flat fifth. Diminished and half-diminished chords on every root.
On F#mMaj7b5’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.