Guitar players does this insane chord exist..?

Your C#7b5 is also called a c# half diminished it has the root, 3rd, flat 5th and flat 7th.

An F5 chord is not really a chord at all, just an interval. It's also known as a power chord and is made up of the root and the 5th.

An F-5 is a normal F major chord minus the 5th (only play the root and 3rd).

I'm gonna disagree with Greybeard a bit on this one.

C#7b5 is a C#7 chord with a flatted fifth - he's right there - but it's not the same as a "half diminished" (because that's a m7 chord with a b5)

As far as the F-5 goes, that's a new one for me. So I'd say you're right: it's an insane chord that doesn't exist. Here are the possibilities that spring to my mind....

"-" is often used in charts - especially jazz charts - to indicate a minor chord. That's not what's happening here, because "5" chords don't have a third - so they can't be minor. But "-" is also used (fairly rarely) in place of "b"; your first chord might be shown as C#7-5 in some charts. So this could be an F major chord with a b5... which would be F-A-Cb.

The other possibility is that it's an altered "power chord", with the notes F-Cb.

I tried Googling "F-5 chord", but only found a two-year old theory thread... where everybody agreed it wasn't really a chord, but if it was, it would be F-A-Cb.

I tried Googling "F-5 chord", but only found a two-year old theory thread... where everybody agreed it wasn't really a chord, but if it was, it would be F-A-Cb.

Or it could be a typo.
Just because it's been thru the hands of an editor, don't assume that it's 100% accurate.

I have a couple of books that have some fairly obvious errors in the early chapters. After that, I wasn't sure I could trust the books in the later chapters where I probably couldn't identify the mistakes.

C#7b5 is a C#7 chord with a flatted fifth - he's right there - but it's not the same as a "half diminished" (because that's a m7 chord with a b5)
:oops: - of course it is. Memory burp, there.
As far as the F-5 goes, that's a new one for me. So I'd say you're right: it's an insane chord that doesn't exist. Here are the possibilities that spring to my mind....
I saw this in a tab, with the same description that I gave. It was something I'd stored away and forgotten about until this thread came up. Sadly I was too lazy to look it up...........................

I've just found a site, where the F-5 is discussed. There are 2 camps. One side is saying that it's an Fmajor, with a diminished 5th, the other side is saying that there is no such thing as a major chord with a diminished 5th.
http://www.ukulelecosmos.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7594&sid=4934c39b78ceeca48f9f66b8c25f5727

Yeah, that's the thread I found too. But there really aren't two camps... there's one camps trying to answer the question (F-A-Cb), and one camp (actually it's just one camper) basically hijacking the thread...

In tertian harmony, chords must be built of major or minor thirds. A-Cb is a diminished third, so it's not a tertian chord. BUT - there are other types of harmony besides tertian... and if you read through the posts carefully, about 4-5 posts in the OP comes back and describes the composition: minimalist with a dash of romanticism, "think Phil Glass". And Glass did a lot of experimenting with non-tertian stuff.

The very next poster picked up on that, and says it could be a "non-traditional" harmony... and referenced Terry Riley, another avant-garde composer. It's at that point - starting with the very next post - that someone argues it doesn't belong in "classical theory".

This is one of those cases where a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, in my opinion. The reference to "classical theory" is a tip-off: there's no such thing as "classical" theory. Theorists talk about either "tertian harmony" (chords theory built in thirds) or the music theory of the "common practice" (the homophonic composition styles of about 1750-1910). "Classical theory" isn't used, to avoid confusion with the "classical" music period (1750-1820).

That poster goes on to say it's not a chord in "jazz theory" or "any theory", which simply isn't true; if you can play it, you can analyze it. He then goes on to say that there are no scales that contain those notes.

Now it's true that a written scale generally won't have both Cb and G# in it. But there are dozens of scales that contain those two tones - the simplest is the A harmonic minor scale. And plenty of compositions use an enharmonic notation to signal additional information about moving lines - Wagner did a lot of that.

There's one more reason I discounted the "other view" in that thread: there really isn't one. It's not about a second point of view - it's about arguing for argument's sake. The only person arguing that there's no such thing is John Kavanaugh. In John's very first post in the thread, he writes You do sometimes use a flatted fifth with a major third, but usually with a seventh as well. The one I always think of is the first chord in "Take the 'A' Train" . If it doesn't exist, how could you use it? If it isn't found in "jazz theory", how can you cite an example of its use in a jazz tune?

I was looking at the C#7b5 chord and wondering how you'd actually play it......

Looking at a "normal" C#7 chord, most people would actually play it x46464 - an A7 shape moved up four frets. That'd give you x - C#(root) - G#(5th) - B(b7th) - F(3rd) - G#(fifth again.) It's easy enough to flatten the G# on the 4th string, but what about the G# on the top E string? Well - if you play the original C#7 chord as x46467, you've now got another B - flattened 7th - on the top E string, so now you've only got one G# note that needs flattening to a G note, and the chord can be played x45467 - tricky, but with practise, doable.

That's why, especially if you're a rhythm guitarist, it's always handy to search out alternate voicings for chords - you never know when you're going to need them!

:D :D :D

Vic

Like most chords there are a ton of ways to play any chord -- including ways of playing it that ignore notes for either artistic or simplifying reasons.

I generally use only a few fingerings when I spot this chord, unless there's a contextual reason to choose a different fingering:

They both build of off typical 7th chord constructions.

I'm going to use the C chord as my example chord for this as it is one everyone pretty much knows.

This chord is fingered as: x 3 2 3 1 x

To make the flat 5th, we need a Gb, so we simply add the b5 in the bass:

2 3 x 3 1

We can also play a 7 chord like this:

x 3 5 3 5 3

We can flatten the G on the 4th string and omit it from the first, giving us:

x 3 4 3 5 x which is fairly easy to finger, we can add the 6th fret on the 1st string x 3 4 3 5 6 for a slightly different sound as well.

We can also play the C on the 6th string, and one common fingering for this chord is:

8 9 8 9 x x

This basic form as several variations all building off this:

x x 8 9 11 8

8 7 8 9 x x

8 7 8 9 7 x

x 9 10 9 11 x

etc.

The fifth is the G