Bmaj13 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 Bmaj13 — drop 2 voicings
Bmaj13 is B, D#, F#, A#, C# and G# — Bmaj9 with the thirteenth on top, and the eleventh left out.
It sounds full and wide open. Six notes into four fingers means something goes: keep the third, the seventh and the thirteenth.
Bmaj13 notes and formula
| B | D# | F# | A# | C# | G# |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 13 |
Tonic — the major sound with most of the scale showing.
Also written BM13, BΔ13 or B major 13. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Bmaj13
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.
Bmaj13 has 13 of them, on the middle four strings, the top four strings and the bottom four strings, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: B in the bass, D# in the bass, A# in the bass and G# 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 x22344 — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for Bmaj13 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 2nd fret. 4 of the 6 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x22344 | 2nd fret | B, root position | G# | all fretted |
| 766676 | 6th fret | B, root position | A# | barred |
| 778897 | 7th fret | B, root position | B | barred |
| x-11-9-9-11-11 | 9th fret | G#, 13th in the bass | D# | barred |
| x-14-13-13-11-11 | 11th fret | B, root position | D# | all fretted |
| x-14-11-13-11-11 | 11th fret | B, root position | D# | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 2 shell, 8 drop 3 and 24 rootless voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Bmaj13, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (E#).
How to use Bmaj13
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Bmaj13 is C#m7 to F#7 — the ii and the V of B — and F#7 shares its third and seventh with C#m7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Bmaj13 belongs to Eb minor (the ♭VI), F# major (the IV, the subdominant), Ab minor (the ♭III) and B major (the I, the tonic).
What to play over Bmaj13
Every note of Bmaj13 is in B major and B lydian.
Chords near Bmaj13
Change one note of Bmaj13 and you have Bmaj9 (drop the sixth), Bmaj11 (the sixth becomes a fourth), B69 (drop the major seventh) or B13 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
Bmaj13 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Bmaj13’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.