Does anyone ever think "what I need here is a Cm7b5" .... or do they noodle about and when they like the sound it eventually gets written down and someone reverse-engineers it into standard nomenclature ... I think that about some Beatles songs .
K
I would say it depends on the person playing. The Beatles knew a great deal more about music theory than they would have been necessarily aware of. The m7b5 construction is of course the 7th chord in any key so any guitarist would quickly learn the shape (definitely the shape with the 5th string root, and quite probably the shape with the 6th string root) so they could play it in whatever key they were in.
As FT says, it's usually played as a passing chord and of course every blues player will know it as the diminished which you'd play in bar 2 of a 12 bar when you want to spice it up a bit. I reckon most blues players, being lazy sods like me would do it just by dropping the Dominant 7 shape down a fret before returning to the root - think of the intro to Deep River Blues for example without worrying that it's not exactly correct.
But yes, the mood and the sound probably come before the theory 99% of the time.
Last edited by Hamwich; 18/01/2106:54 PM. Reason: Dominant 7 of course, it's blues!
Tim H. 1986 4/4 VVTi Sport, 2002 LR Defender, 2022 Mini Cooper SE
... I think that about some Beatles songs .