BmMaj11 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 BmMaj11 — drop 2 voicings
BmMaj11 is B, D, F#, A#, C# and E — BmMaj9 with the eleventh added on top.
It sounds dense and unresolved. The melodic minor tonic with most of the scale showing — more a texture than a chord to comp on.
Minor tonic — the melodic minor as far up as a guitar carries it.
BmMaj11 notes and formula
| B | D | F# | A# | C# | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
Also written BmM11 or Bm(maj11). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play BmMaj11
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.
BmMaj11 has 15 of them, on the bottom four strings, the middle four strings and the top four strings, from the 2nd fret up to the 14th — every inversion the chord has: B in the bass, D in the bass, A# in the bass and E in the bass. The one to learn first is the E shape at the 2nd fret, which is the easiest grip here.
5 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.
Six notes and four fingers, so something has to go. Keep D and A# (they fix the quality) and E and C# (what the symbol is about). Let F# and B go, in that order — a perfect fifth says nothing the root has not, and in a band the bass has the root.
Play BmMaj11 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 13 (G#).
All 8 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- x20320, open position, B, root position, top note E, 2 open strings
- x22332, 2nd fret, B, root position, top note F#, barred
- x22442, 2nd fret, B, root position, top note F#, barred
- 778779, 7th fret, B, root position, top note C#, barred
- x-x-9-9-11-10, 9th fret, B, root position, top note D, all fretted
- x-9-9-9-11-10, 9th fret, F#, 2nd inversion, top note D, barred
- x-14-12-15-14-12, 12th fret, B, root position, top note E, all fretted
- x-14-14-15-15-14, 14th fret, B, root position, top note F#, barred
How to use BmMaj11
How you get to it. The turn that lands on BmMaj11 is C#m7♭5 to F#7♭9: the ii and the V of B minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
What to play over BmMaj11
Every note of BmMaj11 is in B harmonic minor and B melodic minor.
Chords near BmMaj11
Change one note of BmMaj11 and you have Bmaj11 (the minor third becomes the major third), Bm11 (the major seventh becomes the flat seventh) or BmMaj9 (drop the eleventh).
BmMaj11 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor 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.