help: how do i play g#m7b5 on ukulele?

Hey guys, just wondering how to play a g#m7b5 on ukulele. Thank you.

I think the notes would be Ab D Gb Cb, so you could finger it first (index) finger on fret 1 of the G string and bar the second fret of the other three strings. You could work out where those notes occur further up the fingerboard for other inversions. Let me know if you want help to do that.

Bruce in Adelaide.

Bruce is absolutely correct. It's 1222.

A handy shape to know, because it's also a common "rootless" voicing of an E9. You can move it up and down the neck to get F9, F#9, G9, etc.

JJ

To add to Bruce and JJ,

"1222" is a good shape to remember. Your "1" (on the G string) is the root of the m7b5 chord. If you fret 1222, that's G#m7b5. 2333 is Am7b5. 5666 is Cm7b5. 0111 is Gm7b5. Remember one shape, and you can play 12 different chords. Very efficient!

Cheers
Chief

The minor flat 5 is one of a fascinating chord family that includes the 9th and minor 6th chords. As Ukulele JJ pointed out, g#m7b5 is also a rootless E9, but it can also be a Bm6. There are four basic movable shapes for this family -- 1222, 1213, 1312, and 2212.

My entry in Ukisociety's Halloween song contest, "Zombie Blues" pretty much came to me while playing around with these chords. Except for the initial Bm and my dissonant chord, all the other chords in this song are some variation of this chord. I also made extensive use of these shapes in my recent rendition of Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight".

Doug

I make it a point to never play a chord which has more letters and numbers in it's name than there are strings on the instrument... ;-)

just 3 chords

Woody Guthrie is often quoted as saying "Anything more than three chords is just showing off." And then there's the quote attributed to any number of country singers, but I think Willie Nelson said it, "Three chords and the truth -- that's what a country song is."

My favorite is the joke, What's the difference between a rock guitarist and a jazz guitarist? A rock guitarist plays three chords to an audience of thousands, a jazz guitarist plays thousands of chords to an audience of three.

There's no doubt that some of the greatest songs ever use three, maybe four chords, but I find myself drawn to songs that are harmonically rich. Even the blues, which we often think of as just three chords, is really an overlay of flatted 3rds, 5ths, and 7ths on those three chords.

Love the jazz joke Doug.
I probably do play a lot of those oddly named chords, since I'm often adding or dropping a note within a chord. I just don't know enough theory to know the name of the chords I'm making.

Being a James Hill fan, I am drawn to these long named chords.
The funny thing is as James says "A chord may sound difficult, but is actually easy"
The m7b5 is a nice shape to move around along with the m7's & 9's.
With just a bit of practice you can be playing jazz all over the neck or just embellishing some of your 3 & 4 chord songs.

Brewerpaul said:

Love the jazz joke Doug.
I probably do play a lot of those oddly named chords, since I'm often adding or dropping a note within a chord. I just don't know enough theory to know the name of the chords I'm making.

Click to expand...

I know what you mean about not knowing the real names. For my "Zombie Blues", I could probably sit down and figure out the names, but I haven't bothered -- these chords just work with this song.

Same thing with my latest song, "I need a map to your heart", where I use several chords from this family. I know there are reasons according to music theory why a chord in a given progression would really be a Cm6 and not an F9 or an Am7b5, even though the fingerings are identical, but I'd be hard pressed to explain them.

For example (if you're still with me here ), the opening chord sequence in "map to your heart" could be written as:

Fmaj7 Fm6 Fmaj7 Am7b5 D9 Gm7 Gdim F Gdim

But it could also be:

Fmaj7 Bb9 Fmaj7 F9 Am6 Bb6 Bbdim F Bbdim

Which is the "real" sequence? I'm guessing it's the first, but I really don't know why.

Here's a link to "map to your heart", in case you want to hear how these chords sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AaI4z3igqc