Gmaj7b5 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 Gmaj7b5 — drop 2 voicings
Gmaj7b5 is G, B, Db and F# — Gmaj7 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.
Coloured tonic — rare, and unstable for a major chord.
Gmaj7b5 notes and formula
| G | B | Db | F# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Also written GM7b5, GΔ7b5 or Gmaj7(b5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Gmaj7b5
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.
Gmaj7b5 has 12 of them, on the top four strings, the middle four strings and the bottom four strings, from the 2nd fret up to the 11th — every inversion the chord has: G in the bass, B in the bass, Db in the bass and F# in the bass. The one to learn first is the F# shape at the 2nd fret, which is the easiest grip here.
4 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.
Play Gmaj7b5 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 9 (A) or the 13 (E).
All 5 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- 324422, 2nd fret, G, root position, top note F#, barred
- 3444x3, 3rd fret, G, root position, top note G, barred
- xx5677, 5th fret, G, root position, top note B, all fretted
- x-10-9-11-12-9, 9th fret, G, root position, top note Db, all fretted
- x-10-11-11-12-x, 10th fret, G, root position, top note B, all fretted
How to use Gmaj7b5
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Gmaj7b5 is Am7 to D7 — the ii and the V of G — and D7 shares its third and seventh with Am7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Gmaj7b5 belongs to D major (the IV, the subdominant) and B minor (the ♭VI).
What to play over Gmaj7b5
Every note of Gmaj7b5 is in G lydian.
Chords near Gmaj7b5
Change one note of Gmaj7b5 and you have Gmaj7 (the flat fifth becomes the fifth), Gmaj7#5 (the flat fifth becomes the sharp fifth), GmMaj7b5 (the major third becomes the minor third), G7b5 (the major seventh becomes the flat seventh) or G/F# (the flat fifth becomes the fifth).
Gmaj7b5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
The common shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in how this site is built.