Ab11 guitar chord
Playable, correctly spelled, and not how the chord is normally voiced. Right now this is the shapes that put a ninth, eleventh or thirteenth below the root.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Ab11 — uncommon voicings
Ab11 is Ab, Eb, Gb, Bb and Db — Ab9 with the eleventh added, and the third usually dropped.
It sounds suspended rather than tense. The eleventh sits a semitone above the major third, so the third is usually dropped; some shapes here keep it anyway.
Dominant — but effectively a sus chord with a ninth.
Ab11 notes and formula
| Ab | Eb | Gb | Bb | Db |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | ♭7 | 9 | 11 |
Also written Ab9sus4 or Ab dominant 11. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Ab11
Five notes and four fingers, so something has to go. Keep Bb, Db and Gb (they fix the quality). Let Eb and Ab go, in that order — a perfect fifth says nothing the root has not, and in a band the bass has the root.
All 5 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- x31122, 1st fret, C, top note Gb, all fretted
- 444544, 4th fret, Ab, root position, top note Ab, barred
- 666678, 6th fret, Bb, 9th in the bass, top note C, barred
- x-11-10-11-9-9, 9th fret, Ab, root position, top note Db, all fretted
- x-11-11-11-13-11, 11th fret, Ab, root position, top note Eb, barred
How to use Ab11
Ab11 is the V of Db, and that is where it goes if it goes anywhere: the third and the flat seventh are a tritone apart, and both resolve by a semitone into Db.
In which keys. Every note of Ab11 belongs to C# major (the V), Eb minor (the iv), F# major (the ii), Ab minor (the i), Bb minor (the ♭VII) and B major (the vi).
What to play over Ab11
Every note of Ab11 is in Ab natural minor, Ab dorian and Ab mixolydian.
Each of those is a page: the scale across the neck, and the chords it harmonises into — which is where Ab11 sits in it. Every scale.
Chords near Ab11
Change one note of Ab11 and you have Absus2sus4 (drop the flat seventh), Abm9 (the eleventh becomes the minor third), Abm11 (add the minor third), Ab7sus4 (drop the ninth) or Ab9 (the eleventh becomes the major third).
Ab11 is a dominant chord — root, major third, fifth, minor seventh. Dominant seventh chords on every root.
The common shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in how this site is built.