AmMaj11 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About AmMaj11 — drop 2 voicings
AmMaj11 is A, C, E, G#, B and D — AmMaj9 with the eleventh added on top.
It sounds dense and unresolved. Something is always omitted; the ♭3 and the natural 7 are what must not be.
AmMaj11 notes and formula
| A | C | E | G# | B | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
Minor tonic — the melodic minor as far up as a guitar carries it.
Also written AmM11 or Am(maj11). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play AmMaj11
Take the four notes stacked as close together as they go, then drop the second voice from the top an octave. The gap it opens is what makes the chord sound like a chord rather than a cluster.
It lands on four adjacent strings, which is why it is the workhorse voicing on guitar.
AmMaj11 has 13 of them, on the middle four strings, the bottom four strings and the top four strings, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: A in the bass, C in the bass, G# in the bass and D in the bass. The one to learn first is the A shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the middle four strings, so you can run the inversions up one set without changing strings — which is the whole reason to learn them as a family rather than as separate grips.
Start with x00110 — no barre and 3 open strings. 1 of the 8 shapes here sits in open position. 4 of the 8 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x00110 | open position | A, root position | E | 3 open strings |
| 556557 | 5th fret | A, root position | B | barred |
| x07798 | 7th fret | A, root position | C | 1 open string |
| xx7798 | 7th fret | A, root position | C | all fretted |
| x77798 | 7th fret | E, 2nd inversion | C | barred |
| x-12-10-13-12-10 | 10th fret | A, root position | D | all fretted |
| x-12-12-13-13-12 | 12th fret | A, root position | E | barred |
| x-12-12-14-14-12 | 12th fret | A, root position | E | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 6 shell, 8 drop 3, 25 rootless and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of AmMaj11, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 13 (F#).
How to use AmMaj11
How you get to it. The turn that lands on AmMaj11 is Bm7♭5 to E7♭9: the ii and the V of A minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
What to play over AmMaj11
Every note of AmMaj11 is in A harmonic minor and A melodic minor.
Chords near AmMaj11
Change one note of AmMaj11 and you have Amaj11 (the minor third becomes a major third), Am11 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or AmMaj9 (drop the fourth).
AmMaj11 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On AmMaj11’s sound and use this page follows Ted Pease & Ken Pullig, Modern Jazz Voicings (Berklee Press, 2001). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.