Gmaj7b5 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
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- Fingers, notes or intervals
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About Gmaj7b5 — shell 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.
Gmaj7b5 notes and formula
| G | B | Db | F# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Coloured tonic — rare, and unstable for a major chord.
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
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.
Gmaj7b5 has 5 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2, the bottom four strings, strings 5-3-2-1, the top four strings and the middle four strings, from the 2nd fret up to the 9th — all in one inversion, so the bass note never moves. The one to learn first is the G shape at the 2nd fret.
Start with xx5677 — no barre and low, at the 5th fret. None of the shapes for Gmaj7b5 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 2nd fret. 2 of the 5 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 12th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 324422 | 2nd fret | G, root position | F# | barred |
| 3444x3 | 3rd fret | G, root position | G | barred |
| xx5677 | 5th fret | G, root position | B | all fretted |
| x-10-9-11-12-9 | 9th fret | G, root position | Db | all fretted |
| x-10-11-11-12-x | 10th fret | G, root position | B | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 12 drop 2, 9 drop 3 and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Gmaj7b5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (A) and the 13 (E).
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 a fifth), Gmaj7#5 (the flat fifth becomes a sharp fifth), GmMaj7b5 (the major third becomes a minor third), G7b5 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or G/F# (the flat fifth becomes a fifth).
Gmaj7b5 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Gmaj7b5’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.