Ab13 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 Ab13 — drop 2 voicings
Ab13 is Ab, C, Eb, Gb, Bb and F — Ab9 with the thirteenth added on top.
It sounds big and open. Six notes will not fit under four fingers: the fifth goes first, then the ninth, and the third, flat seventh and thirteenth stay.
Ab13 notes and formula
| Ab | C | Eb | Gb | Bb | F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | ♭7 | 9 | 13 |
Dominant — the full V chord.
Also written Abdom13 or Ab dominant 13. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Ab13
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.
Ab13 has 14 of them, on the top four strings, the bottom four strings and the middle four strings, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Ab in the bass, C in the bass, Gb in the bass and F in the bass. The one to learn first is the F shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the top 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 x-11-10-11-13-13 — no barre. None of the shapes for Ab13 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 6 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 413112 | 1st fret | Ab, root position | Gb | barred |
| 433342 | 2nd fret | Ab, root position | Gb | barred |
| 444566 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Bb | barred |
| 464564 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Ab | barred |
| x-11-10-11-13-13 | 10th fret | Ab, root position | F | all fretted |
| x-11-10-11-11-13 | 10th fret | Ab, root position | F | barred |
| 11-11-11-11-13-13 | 11th fret | Eb, 2nd inversion | F | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 2 shell, 9 drop 3 and 22 rootless voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Ab13, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (D).
How to use Ab13
Ab13 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 Ab13 belongs to C# major (the V, the dominant) and Bb minor (the ♭VII).
What to play over Ab13
Every note of Ab13 is in Ab mixolydian and Ab lydian dominant.
Chords near Ab13
Change one note of Ab13 and you have Abmaj13 (the flat seventh becomes a major seventh), Ab69 (drop the flat seventh), Ab9 (drop the sixth) or Ab9#11 (the sixth becomes a flat fifth).
Ab13 is a dominant chord — root, major third, fifth, minor seventh. Dominant seventh chords on every root.
On Ab13’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.