Chord Colors

F♯ Jazz Minor b5 scale

357912

About the F sharp Jazz Minor b5 scale

F sharp Jazz Minor b5 is used for jazz and film music that wants an unstable minor. Think of it as a melodic minor with the fifth lowered, off balance and modern.

Its notes are F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. The formula is W H W H 1½ W H.

Also called Jeths' Mode and Melodic Minor 5.

The open-string notes A and B all sit inside the scale. Down at the 2nd fret of the low E string lies the lowest F a guitar can play. With a capo at the second fret, F Jazz Minor 5 can be played with E-shape fingerings.

Positions

Playable shapes for this scale up the neck. Tap any note to hear it.

CAGED

Five shapes, each anchored to a chord form you already know, the pop and rock default that ties your scales to your chords. The outlined notes are that chord, so you can see the C, A, G, E, and D shapes inside the scale.

E shapefr 1
D shapefr 3
C shapefr 6
A shapefr 8
G shapefr 11
3NPS

3NPS stands for 3 notes per string. It lays the scale out in seven even shapes for rock and metal lead, and favors speed because the picking pattern stays consistent across every string.

Shape 1open
Shape 2fr 2
Shape 3fr 3
Shape 4fr 5
Shape 5fr 7
Shape 6fr 8
Shape 7fr 10
7-position system

7 four-fret boxes, one per scale degree, each a single hand position with almost no shifting. The jazz and classical way, from William Leavitt's Berklee method.

Position 1fr 1
Position 2fr 2
Position 3fr 4
Position 4fr 5
Position 5fr 7
Position 6fr 8
Position 7fr 11

Notes and intervals

1F#F♯Root
2G#G♯Major 2nd
3AAMinor 3rd
4BBPerfect 4th
5CCDiminished 5th
6D#D♯Major 6th
7E#E♯Major 7th
StepsW H W H 1½ W H
Semitones2-1-2-1-3-2-1
Degrees1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Shapes

Chromatic

CC♯D♭DD♯E♭EFF♯G♭GG♯A♭AA♯B♭B

Circle of Fifths

CGDAEBF♯G♭C♯D♭G♯A♭D♯E♭A♯B♭F

Related scales

Jazz Minor b5 in other keys

Embed this scale

Paste the snippet into a lesson page, a blog or a forum post. The card links back here.

Gb Jazz Minor b5 scale on guitar shown as colored note dots
Chord Colors

There's so much more to explore

Explore on the go. Over 150 chord progressions, modal mixture, build your own progressions, and more!

Try web version iOS app
Chord Colors on iPhone showing chords, guitar voicings, progressions, and scales