GmMaj7b5 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 GmMaj7b5 — shell voicings
GmMaj7b5 is G, Bb, Db and F# — Gm7b5 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.
GmMaj7b5 notes and formula
| G | Bb | Db | F# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | ♭5 | 7 |
Rare tonic — a half-diminished chord with its seventh raised instead.
Also written GmM7b5 or Gm(maj7)b5. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play GmMaj7b5
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.
GmMaj7b5 has 3 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2, strings 5-3-2-1 and the bottom four strings, from open position 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 nut.
Start with xx5676 — no barre and low, at the 5th fret. None of the shapes for GmMaj7b5 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 11th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3443x3 | 3rd fret | G, root position | G | barred |
| 34x322 | 2nd fret | G, root position | F# | all fretted |
| xx5676 | 5th fret | G, root position | Bb | all fretted |
| x-10-x-11-11-9 | 9th fret | G, root position | Db | all fretted |
| x-10-11-11-11-x | 10th fret | G, root position | Bb | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 12 drop 2 and 9 drop 3 voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of GmMaj7b5, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (C) and the b13 (Eb).
What to play over GmMaj7b5
Every note of GmMaj7b5 is in G diminished.
Chords near GmMaj7b5
Change one note of GmMaj7b5 and you have Gdim (drop the major seventh), Gdim7 (the major seventh becomes a sixth), Gmaj7b5 (the minor third becomes a major third), Gm7b5 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or GmMaj7 (the flat fifth becomes a fifth).
GmMaj7b5 is a diminished chord — root, minor third, flat fifth. Diminished and half-diminished chords on every root.
On GmMaj7b5’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.