F#mMaj7b5 guitar chord
Root, third and seventh: the guide tones fix the quality, so the fifth is dropped. That is what leaves a string free, so pick a tension to put on top.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About F#mMaj7b5 — shell 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
Root, third and seventh. The third and seventh, the guide tones, are what make the chord major, minor or dominant, so the fifth can go: it says nothing the symbol needs.
Three notes means a spare string, which is the real point. Put a tension on it.
F#mMaj7b5 has 4 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2, the bottom four strings and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — all in one inversion, so the bass note never moves. The one to learn first is the F# shape at the nut.
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 14 drop 2, 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.