AbmMaj11 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 AbmMaj11 — drop 2 voicings
AbmMaj11 is Ab, Cb, Eb, G, Bb and Db — AbmMaj9 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.
AbmMaj11 notes and formula
| Ab | Cb | Eb | G | Bb | Db |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
Minor tonic — the melodic minor as far up as a guitar carries it.
Also written AbmM11 or Abm(maj11). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play AbmMaj11
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.
AbmMaj11 has 12 of them, on the bottom four strings, the top four strings and the middle four strings, from open position up to the 11th — every inversion the chord has: Ab in the bass, Cb in the bass, G in the bass and Db in the bass. The one to learn first is the Ab shape at the 4th fret, which is the easiest grip here.
4 of them sit on the bottom 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 xx6687 — no barre. None of the shapes for AbmMaj11 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 4th fret. 4 of the 6 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 4th fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 445446 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Bb | barred |
| xx6687 | 6th fret | Ab, root position | Cb | all fretted |
| x66687 | 6th fret | Eb, 2nd inversion | Cb | barred |
| x-11-9-12-11-9 | 9th fret | Ab, root position | Db | all fretted |
| x-11-11-12-12-11 | 11th fret | Ab, root position | Eb | barred |
| x-11-11-13-13-11 | 11th fret | Ab, root position | Eb | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 5 shell, 9 drop 3, 24 rootless and 1 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of AbmMaj11, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 13 (F).
How to use AbmMaj11
How you get to it. The turn that lands on AbmMaj11 is Bbm7♭5 to Eb7♭9: the ii and the V of Ab minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
What to play over AbmMaj11
Every note of AbmMaj11 is in Ab harmonic minor and Ab melodic minor.
Chords near AbmMaj11
Change one note of AbmMaj11 and you have Abmaj11 (the minor third becomes a major third), Abm11 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or AbmMaj9 (drop the fourth).
AbmMaj11 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On AbmMaj11’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.